Present Imperfect
by Vitellia
Summary: Sequel to Past Imperfect. AU. Becky Snape and Gus Longbottom are thick as thieves and just as sneaky. What was supposed to be a lark – a trip to the past with Hermione's old Time Turner – turns ruinously wrong when they return to a dark, dystopian present where nothing is as it should be.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note** : This is a sequel to _Past Imperfect_ , in which Hermione's time travel creates an entirely new AU where people who are dead in canon are alive, people who are married to one person in canon are married to another, and children who were didn't exist in canon do here. If you haven't read _Past Imperfect_ , this story will _not_ make sense, so I suggest you read that first. If you have read it, but it's been a while and you've forgotten some of the details and you don't want to go back and re-read the whole story, I'm putting a brief summary of what's different in this AU in an author's note at the end of this this chapter.

For this story, I am blessed with not one but _two_ brilliant beta readers, turtlewexler and Fragilereality, both of whom asked had I read _Cursed Child_ , since apparently the premise is similar. I have not, and don't plan to until after I've finished this story, so as not to be influenced. Everything in here – except the original characters, who belong only to J.K. Rowling – came from my own twisted mind.

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Hoping**

"Ready for your big day, Piglet?"

"You mustn't call me that anymore, Daddy," Becky says. "Dad," she corrects.

Severus heaves an exaggerated sigh. "My little Hufflepuff is growing up."

"Not that either!" She only just manages to stop herself from stamping her foot in frustration. "I'm going to Sort into Slytherin, like you."

"Like Longbottom, you mean," Severus smirks.

"Daddy!" Becky hopes she isn't blushing. Slytherin ladies do _not_ blush. Aunt Pansy says so.

"What if Gus is Sorted into Gryffindor?" Hermione asks from the doorway.

 _Then to Gryffindor I shall go_ , Becky thinks grimly. She doesn't think she's cut out for Mum's House, though Gus may be. The whole of Hogwarts is taking bets on where the new Headmaster's son will land. Neville and Hermione, newly appointed Head of Gryffindor when Neville was made Headmaster, have been saying publicly and emphatically – but not entirely convincingly – that it matters not a whit where Gus and Becky are Sorted. Privately, they both realize that their Slytherin spouses will gloat endlessly if at least one of their children doesn't end up a Lion.

If it weren't for Gus, being in Hufflepuff wouldn't be terrible. All the Diggory children are there, and a couple of the Weasleys. She knows she won't be in Ravenclaw like her brother Lucius. She's good at her lessons, but they don't consume her the way they do her brother. Mum tells her all the Houses have their strong points and to let the Hat put her where it thinks best. Becky is having none of that. Mum didn't do that, after all. Daddy told her that Mum asked for Gryffindor when the Hat wanted to put her in Ravenclaw.

Becky stands and picks up her bag. "See you at the Sorting," she says.

"You're wearing your hair like that?" Hermione asks.

"I told you, Mum, Aunt Pansy's going to help me get ready."

"No red lipstick. No high heels. No padded brassiere."

"Mum!" Becky rolls her eyes. She's not sure when Mummy became Mum, but the transition happened without her even noticing it. Remembering to call her father Dad is proving much harder.

She walks up the stairs and through the Gothic arch that leads to the private entrance to the Headmaster's quarters. To almost everyone, the arch appears to cover an alcove, not the entrance to a hallway. But because Neville and Pansy are her godparents, the wards have been set to recognize her and she can see the entrance.

"Good morning, Headmaster," she says. The title feels strange on her tongue. She hopes she won't slip and call him Uncle Neville in front of the other students.

"Good morning, Miss Snape," he replies, matching her formality. "Won't you come in?"

Uncle Neville is kind and clever and almost as good at potions as Daddy. But not quite. He is handsomer than Daddy though. Mum says he's not but Becky thinks it is a near thing but Uncle Neville has it by a nose – especially after Daddy showed her what his teeth used to look like before he fixed them. Gus Longbottom already has perfect teeth. Becky sighs. Gus has perfect _everything_.

Gus is nowhere to be seen but Aunt Pansy is lounging on the sofa, drinking coffee. Setting the cup down, she stands and crosses the room with the grace of a cat and kisses Becky. Her crimson lipstick is charmed not to smudge, and leaves not a trace of color on Becky's cheek.

"Hi, Aunt Pansy. Where's Gus?"

"Out on the pitch with about a thousand Weasleys. He'd only get in the way here. We're going to be doing some serious Charms work."

"With this rats' nest, I need it," Becky said, pushing the riot of black curls out of her face.

"Your hair is lovely, pet. You just have to know how to manage it."

Becky loves it that Aunt Pansy calls her by the same endearment Daddy calls Mum. It makes her feel grown up and cherished all at the same time. Pansy Longbottom is sophisticated and fashionable and ever so slightly scandalous, and for some reason she's chosen Becky with her mad hair and horrid teeth to be the daughter she never had. Uncle Neville wanted more children, but Aunt Pansy said he'd got his heir and did he think she was going to ruin her figure popping out babies like a bloody Weasley? When Uncle Neville asked wouldn't she like a little girl to dress up and fuss over, Aunt Pansy said she has Becky to dress up and fuss over. And she does. Mum isn't much for all that, and is happy to let Aunt Pansy take over that aspect of things. Mum is wonderful to talk to though, about absolutely everything. She's the smartest person Becky knows, except Daddy, and Becky's long since given up trying to decide which of them is smarter and called it a draw.

Mum may be brilliant, but Aunt Pansy is _glamorous_. With her smoky eyes and long red nails and heels that she shouldn't be able to walk in but somehow can, she's the epitome of everything Becky wants to be. Uncle Neville looks at her like she's the last bit of pudding left on the table and he's starving. Mum says Aunt Pansy has him wrapped around her little finger, but Becky thinks they might have each other wrapped up, since sometimes Aunt Pansy looks at Uncle Neville like _he's_ the last bit of pudding. She's seen her parents look at each other that way a couple of times, but not often, either because they're just naturally more discreet, or because Lucius broke them of the habit, covering his eyes and shouting, "You're scarring me for life!" whenever they looked like they might get romantic.

"Oh!" Becky breathes as she feels the magic wash over her. Aunt Pansy's fingers comb through her hair, taming it into smooth, shining waves. When she touches it, it's soft and silky, and with the curls loosened, it hangs down to the middle of her back. She can't stop staring in the mirror.

"Lovely," Pansy says.

"It is."

" _You're_ lovely."

"My hair is the way you've done it, but I'm not," Becky says. "My teeth are still a fright." She can't wait till she can fix them but Mum says not till her jaw is finished growing. She supposes awful teeth were to be expected, given what both of her parents started out with. Aunt Pansy showed her the memory of when she hexed Mum's teeth, and in it Daddy's teeth were even worse than Becky's. He fixed them just before they got married. Becky asked whether Mum told him she wouldn't marry him otherwise, but she said of course not, that she didn't care about his teeth. Becky wonders whether she could look past teeth like that if Gus had them. Mum says you don't love someone because they have nice teeth or are handsome. If that were so she'd have married Draco Malfoy. Becky has heard these stories but still can't quite believe it. Mum and Uncle Draco….just, _no_. Aunt Pansy also used to date Uncle Draco, who was apparently quite the man about town.

"Look at me, pet," Pansy says. "Am I beautiful?"

"You're the most glamorous witch I know!"

"You bet your sweet arse I am. But I'm not actually beautiful. My nose is a bit too turned up, my lips rather too thin, and my face isn't quite symmetrical. Take away the make-up and the clothes and the perfectly styled hair, and I'm actually rather average. But the whole package? I turn more heads than that swotty mother of yours ever dreamed of, or Astoria, or even Cissy, now that she's getting a bit long in the tooth. Because I have _style_. And I can teach it to you when you're a little older."

"Why not now?"

"It doesn't work that way, pet."

The door opens and Gus comes charging in, bits of grass in his hair and his clothes covered in mud. "Give us a kiss, Mum," he says, making for Pansy.

"Touch me with all that mud and I'll hex you into next week," Pansy says, casting a Scourgify on him. "Now go and have a shower."

"Why? You just cleaned me up."

Pansy looks at Becky. "Men. Honestly."

Gus notices Becky's hair. "You look nice."

Becky smiles, remembering not to show her teeth.

"Shower. Now," Pansy says. "If you want to take the train with the rest of the first years we need to leave for London in half an hour."

* * *

 **Author's Note** : In the AU created by the events of _Past Imperfect_ , the Dark Lord never rose at the end of Harry and company's fourth year since time-traveling Hermione and Snape destroyed all the Horcruxes earlier that year. Therefore Cedric Diggory never died and his children are at Hogwarts with Becky and Gus. The final battle never took place so Snape, Lupin, Tonks, Fred Weasley and all the other casualties of that cataclysm are alive and well in this world. The Hogwarts Board of Governors forced Dumbledore into retirement and Minerva has served as Headmistress until retiring herself and passing the baton to Neville just before _Present Imperfect_ opens.

Neville is married to Pansy Parkinson (who is the one who hexed Hermione's teeth in this timeline, not Draco), Hermione is married to Severus, Harry to Ginny, Ron to Lavender, and Draco to Astoria Greengrass. All the Malfoys have left their blood prejudice behind them. Hermione and Severus are godparents to Draco's son Scorpius. Draco and Astoria are godparents to Severus and Hermione's son Lucius (yes, Hermione actually named her son after Lucius Malfoy, which you will understand if you've read _Past Imperfect_ ). Hermione is also godmother to Harry's son James, whose godfather is Ron Weasley.

I think that just about explains the lay of the AU landscape. Feel free to PM me with anything else that seems confusing and I'll explain in another author's note.

If you haven't had the pleasure already, please do check out the marvelous stories by both of my very talented beta readers, turtlewexler and Fragilereality. I really can't say enough wonderful things about these two ladies' clever and well-written stories.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Sorting

"Lucy Angstrom," calls the new Deputy Head, with whom Lucius is apprenticing. Professor Capshaw took over as Ravenclaw Head of House after Flitwick retired, and is planning on retiring himself when Lucius achieves his Mastery. Becky hopes it will be the longest apprenticeship in the history of magic, because she does _not_ want her bloody prat of a brother assigning her homework.

"Gryffindor!" the Hat proclaims, and the Lions' table erupts in cheers and applause. Mum and Uncle Neville exchange a smile at the head table.

Several more Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws are Sorted, but still no Slytherins by the time Capshaw calls, "Augustus Longbottom."

Unlike most of the first years, Gus seems completely at ease as crosses the hall and sits on the stool. And why shouldn't he? Hogwarts has been his home since birth, and he's watched every Sorting since he was old enough to remember, just as Becky has. _Please let it be Hufflepuff_ , Becky thinks, though she knows it won't. Aunt Pansy and Daddy watch from the back of the hall with the other spouses and younger children of staff.

When the Hat cries, "Slytherin!" Aunt Pansy shoots Uncle Neville the kind of smug, insufferable look Lucius wore for nearly a week when he beat Mum's NEWT scores. She leans over and whispers something in Daddy's ear, and the two exchange the wickedest of grins.

"Cassiopeia Malfoy," says Capshaw, and every male eye under fourteen, and a few of them over, is riveted to the platinum-haired vision that floats toward the Sorting Hat. She perches delicately on the stool, and the Hat proclaims, "Slytherin!"

"Oi, Cass!" Gus shouts, waving her over to their table. Becky sighs. She knew there wasn't much chance of Cass Malfoy going anywhere but Slytherin, but it's still a blow. For about the ten thousandth time, Becky wonders how a man as wonderful as Uncle Lucius can have such a beastly cow for a granddaughter.

When the Deputy Head calls, "Rebecca Snape," Becky takes a last look at Severus and Pansy, and heads for the front of the hall.

 _Hmm_ , she hears. She can't actually hear it with her ears, but in her head. _Slytherin father, Gryffindor mother, Ravenclaw brother. If I put you in Hufflepuff, where you so clearly belong, little Badger, your family will be the perfect balance of all the Houses. Most auspicious indeed._

 _But you won't if I don't want you to?_ Becky thinks.

 _You are your mother's daughter, aren't you? Actually, I thought both your parents would have been better off in Ravenclaw._

Becky _is_ devious and cunning enough. She knows she is. She just has to convince the bloody Hat. She thinks hard about the sneakiest thing she's ever done.

 _Oho, what's this? A Time Turner? Why you little…_

 _Snake?_

 _Actually, I was thinking it was rather_ bold _, rather_ daring _…_

"Hatstall!" a voice shouts. Becky recognizes it as Arthur, George Weasley's youngest son. "Hatstall!" other voices join in chorusing.

 _Oh, gods, you're not going to put me in_ Gryffindor _?_

 _No, little Badger._

Becky slumps. Hufflepuff then.

 _You'd be happiest there_ , the Hat warns.

 _Please, please,_ please _Sort me into my father's House._

The Hat falls silent, and the cries of _Hatstall_ become so loud that when it finally does speak, the Hat has to shout to be heard over the din. "Slytherin!" it thunders. When Capshaw pulls the Hat from her head, Becky looks at her father, whom she expected to be smiling. Instead, he looks grim, and Becky has the sudden, sick feeling that she's just made a terrible mistake.

There are only three first year Slytherin girls. Cass Malfoy and Delilah DeWinter, who met only that day, immediately pair off, leaving Becky odd man out.

Becky and Cass have been thrown together all their lives, what with Mum and Daddy being Scorpius's godparents and Draco and Astoria being Lucius's godparents. Everyone just assumed the two girls would be friends, but as hard as Becky tried – especially for Uncle Lucius's sake – it just never happened. Somehow, in her desperation to follow Gus into the dungeons, she pushed aside the knowledge that it would mean rooming with that platinum haired harpy for the next seven years.

She leaves the two of them whispering and tittering behind the curtains of Delilah's bed and goes back to the common room. Gus is playing exploding snap with a group of other boys, both of the other first years, Zabini and the Russian boy with the unpronounceable name, and a few second years. They're absorbed in the game, so Becky drifts away, finding a place on one of the couches near some second and third year girls. She knows all of them slightly, having lived at Hogwarts, and one of them well. Rose, the first Weasley Sorted into Slytherin in more than a century. Weasley or no, Rose is as cool and self-assured as the rest of the Slytherin girls, and though she gives Becky a smile, it's a _You're an okay kid but don't think I'm going to stick my neck out for you_ kind of smile rather than a _Don't worry, I'll show you the ropes_ kind of smile.

Becky goes back to her room and, ignoring the other girls, climbs into her bed and pulls the curtains shut. There's a small gray blanket lying on the bed with a note on top of it. She breaks the seal with the entwined double S and unfurls the scroll. It's addressed _Dear Piglet_ , with _Piglet_ crossed out and _Rebecca_ written above it, and signed _Love, Daddy_ , which is also crossed out and replaced with _With fondest regards, Father_. She looks at the throw, which is made of the same plush gray fabric as the toy she didn't dare bring lest the other girls see and make fun of her. When she touches it, it's soft but doesn't feel flat like a blanket. It's lumpy and has bits that shouldn't be there. She picks it up and runs her hands over it, and although it looks like her fingers are stroking flat fabric, what they feel are ears, muzzle, and a tail. _Eeyore_. Daddy must have Charmed him and had one of the elves bring him here. Casting a Muffliato, Becky collapses onto the bed, buries her face in the worn, familiar velveteen and lets the tears come.

* * *

 **Author's Note** : Thank you, as always, to turtlewexler and Fragilereality, who read and gave feedback. I alone am responsible for any errors, as I tinkered a bit since they saw it.


	3. Regretting

**Chapter 3: Regretting**

"Children are arseholes," Aunt Pansy declares. Becky tried to put a good face on things, but Pansy saw right through her. "They are. I was a horrid little bitch. And Draco. Gods, Draco was the biggest berk ever."

"What about Mum?" Becky asks.

"Insufferable, bossy, know-it-all swot. Rubbing everyone's nose in how much smarter she was."

"Daddy?"

"I didn't know him when he was a boy, did I? But I suppose he was as big a git as any."

"Uncle Neville?"

Pansy sighs. "Neville was always lovely. That's why I married him." She grins wickedly. "Well, _one_ of the reasons." Becky blushes without quite knowing why. "You'll have to stop that," Pansy says.

"I know, but I don't know how. Is there a spell?"

Pansy's laughter tinkles. "Wouldn't that be something? You should ask that brother of yours to work on one for you."

"Lucius would never do that for me. He lives to torment me."

"He won't always, pet."

"Next I suppose you'll tell me Cass Malfoy won't always have Gus and the other boys trailing around her like lovesick puppies."

"He'll get over it. Remember, I was blinded by all that Malfoy beauty and blondness at one point, too. Thank all the gods I came to my senses because Neville is…" and here she gets that last bit of pudding look. "Gus will get over it, too."

"Why do you want him to? I'm… "

"You're the daughter of the most intelligent and powerful witch and wizard I've ever met. My son was lucky enough to get his father's looks and my personality. If my grandchildren have that plus even half of Severus and Hermione's power and brilliance, well, there'll be no stopping them."

Becky thinks about these beautiful, charismatic, brilliant hypothetical children and smiles.

"Now run along and make the best of things with those little bitches in the dungeons," Pansy says. "But let's fix your hair first, yes?"

"Yes, please."

"You do it. I taught you the incantation."

"What if I mess it up?"

"Then I'll fix it. Go on."

Becky runs her fingers through the tangle of curls and murmurs the spell Pansy taught her. She feels the curls relax as her hair hangs longer down her back.

"Perfect!" Pansy declares.

With her perfect hair and imperfect teeth, Becky heads back to the dungeons. For the thousandth time since the Sorting, she wishes she'd listened to Mum. She'd have Hufflepuff Housemates who are nice to her. Gus would still be her friend because he said so before the Sorting and she mostly believed him, but not enough to take a chance. They may be Housemates now, but they're growing apart. She can feel it. He and that Zabini are practically inseparable.

Speak of the devil, she thinks crossly as she enters the common room to find the two of them playing chess.

"If you had a Time Turner," Gus is saying.

"You can only go back a few hours," Zabini says. "And you can't get one anyway. They keep them all locked up in the Ministry."

"Hmpf," Becky says.

"What?" Zabini demands, looking at her like she's something he scraped off his shoe.

"Nothing," Becky says.

"Then bugger off," Zabini says.

"She can stay if she want to," Gus says, giving Becky the grin that can charm even Pansy when she's in a strop. Becky watches the game progress. Gus has been honing his skills against Uncle Lucius and Uncle Ron since he was a little boy. Though he still loses every time, it takes them a few moves more to beat him with each passing year, so he makes short work of Zabini now.

"Bloody hell," Zabini says as his king dies a gruesome death.

Gus smirks. "Who's next?"

"I'll have a go," Cass says, taking Zabini's place. You'd think she'd have learned to play better from her grandfather, but she hasn't, and Gus finishes her off without breaking a sweat. "What are you looking at, Snape?" she demands, glaring at Becky.

"Not much, Malfoy," Becky replies. They've been Cass and Becky since they were in nappies, but now that they're first years, Cass has started using her surname, so Becky reciprocates.

"What were you saying about Time Turners when I came in?" Becky asks Gus before he starts looking for his next victim.

"Just talking about how much fun you could have with one of those," Gus says.

"We could," Becky agrees with such a knowing smile (without teeth, like the Mona Lisa) that Gus's look turns assessing.

"Let's go for a walk," he says. Before they even make it to the stairs, he pulls her into an alcove and demands, "Okay, spill."

"What makes you think there's anything to spill?"

Gus casts a quick Muffliato and tickles her. She shrieks and squirms away from him.

"There's no one to hear you scream," he warns with a feral grin, making for her again.

"All right," she gasps. "I'll tell you." _Well played, Snape_ , she thinks smugly. She tells him about how she found Mum's Time Turner last summer. Ever since the Sorting she'd been thinking maybe she should use it to go back to get herself re-Sorted into Hufflepuff where she so obviously belongs, but she came up with a better idea while watching Gus annihilate his Housemates at the chessboard.

"Blimey, Becky," Gus breathes. "What couldn't we get up to with that!"

Becky lifts a brow. "What indeed?" she asks, sounding rather gratifyingly like her father.

* * *

 **Author's Note** : Thanks as always to Fragilereality and turtlewexler for beta reading, both of fan fiction and original fiction, and for moral support.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Turning

Becky takes another sausage from the platter and smiles across the table at her parents. Even though she feels a little guilty that she came to breakfast with them expressly to nick Mum's Time Turner, which is in her pocket, she's still happy to be here. She misses them. At least they're here in the castle, and she can send a message using the Protean Charm coin whenever she wants saying she's coming to breakfast. The other kids, except Gus, can't. And Gus almost never has a meal with his parents, content to sit in the Great Hall with their odious housemates.

"Remember, don't tell any of them about Harry," Hermione says. "Not even Gus."

"Gus already knows," Becky says, "But I won't tell anyone else, and he knows not to either."

"The whole class probably knows," Severus says. "Most of them do have older siblings, you know."

"But they don't know _when_ he's coming," Hermione says.

"They're going to be surprised, Mum, I promise, and they're going to love it," Becky says. Every first year class before has. The Great Harry Potter, the boy who defeated Voldemort when he was only a baby, and now the biggest Quidditch star in England. Becky's seen him duel Mum before, and he's good, but Daddy's better. He usually only duels with her for the NEWT level students though. "You're almost everyone's favorite teacher, you know," she says.

Severus snorts, and Hermione narrows her eyes at him. "What?" she demands.

"It's better to be feared than loved," he says. Becky is pretty sure he doesn't mean this, is just goading Mum. That's certainly never been his approach to parenting, and she can't imagine that's the kind of teacher he was either.

"Says the most hated teacher in the history of Hogwarts," Hermione says.

"Mum, that isn't true!"

"Ask Harry and Ron if you want independent confirmation."

"Those dunderheads," Severus mutters, but it's perfunctory. Becky knows he doesn't actually dislike them. He's just being what Mum calls a curmudgeon.

"Or Neville," Hermione says.

"Uncle Neville was Daddy's apprentice," Becky says. "They're friends."

"Now. Ask him about our first three and a half years here."

"What changed in your fourth year?"

Severus and Hermione exchange a look across the table. "Everything," he says, taking his wife's hand.

* * *

"That was brilliant!" Zabini says, heading to the front of the class to join the crowd mobbing the great Harry Potter.

There are enthusiastic expressions of assent from all the first years, Slytherin and Gryffindor alike. Becky hangs back. She can talk to Uncle Harry any time. So does Gus, who says, "Look." She follows his eyes to where the Invisibility Cloak Harry used to ambush Mum mid-lecture lies draped over a chair next to them. He pulls a small pouch from his pocket.

"What's that?"

"Peruvian Darkness Powder," he says. "Now take my hand and don't let go."

"Gus, what are you –"

"Shhh," he says, taking her hand, and then the room is plunged into darkness. She feels Gus pulling her, and stumbles after him. Once they're out the door, she can see again, but Gus is dragging her down the hallway at a run. She does her best to keep up, and soon they're outside the archway that leads to the private entrance to the Headmaster's quarters. It's not until they're in Gus's bedroom and Becky is trying to catch her breath that she sees what's in Gus's hand.

"You _stole_ it!" she gasps, looking at the shimmering fabric.

"I _borrowed_ it," he says. "I'll give it back once we're through using it."

"Using it for what?"

"You're thick for a Slytherin," he says.

"Git," she snaps. " _Thieving_ git."

"We don't want anyone seeing two of us when we go back in time."

Becky thinks about this. It was rather clever of him. "You promise you'll give it back?"

"Of course. I'm not actually a thief, you know," he says. "So, are you ready?"

"What, now?"

"You said you had it."

"I do, but…"

"Then no time like the present," he says, then adds, grinning, "Or the past."

After a brief discussion of how many hours to go back, maximizing the mischief potential in various situations, including a Potions class with the swotty Ravenclaws who need to be taken down a peg or two, Gus drapes the cloak over both of them. Standing close to Gus beneath it, Becky puts the golden chain around both their necks, and spins the Time Turner, carefully counting out the number of spins they'd agreed on.

* * *

 **Author's Note** : Many thanks as always to turtlewexler and Fragilereality, who Britpicked a glaring Americanism in here - pancakes. Who knew? If you haven't read turtlewexler's WIP _The Poison Garden_ , you're missing out. Fragilereality isn't writing much fan fiction at the moment (though I wish she'd finish her original; novel, whose premise I'm head over heels crazy about) but has a slew of great stories here already. Thanks also to ReaderRabid2, whose lovely review one day prompted me to come back to this story after many weeks of neglect (original fiction has held primacy of place lately) and start working on it again.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

They're in Gus's bedroom, but it's _not_ Gus's bedroom. The furniture is different. So are the curtains and the pictures on the walls. Gus looks out the window and gasps.

"What?" Becky asks.

"That tree," he says, pointing. "It's huge. Or it's supposed to be. It's so small now."

"Something's gone terribly wrong. I think we should go back right now."

"We can go back anytime we want. I want to have a look around first and see what's going on."

"I don't know," Becky says.

"Don't be such a Hufflepuff."

Becky turns away, not wanting him to see how much this casual insult hurts. What's wrong with being a Hufflepuff? Why do these bloody Slytherins use the word like some kind of insult? Even her father, who calls her – used to call her, before the Sorting – his little Hufflepuff, who always said it in the most affectionate way, does _he_ think there's something wrong with the members of that House? With _her_?

"Hey," Gus says, putting his hand on her arm. Becky shakes him off and won't look at him. "I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't mean to upset you. Let's just have a quick look around and if you still want to go back, we will, okay?"

Becky nods, still not trusting herself to speak. Gus puts the cloak back over them and they walk through the empty sitting room, which is also completely redecorated from the one they know, to the entryway and out into the hallway.

They make their way through the corridors and down the staircases, careful to avoid touching any of the people who can't see them. It must be a break between classes, because students are walking about. Oddly, none of the students look familiar, and even their uniforms are slightly different in style from the ones Gus and Becky are wearing. And their hair! What on earth is with those hairstyles?

In the dungeons, Gus and Becky press themselves against the wall as students scatter to make way for a tall, thin figure in black striding down the corridor, robes billowing dramatically.

"Is that…?" Gus says, eyes bulging.

Becky stares, transfixed. It both is and isn't her father. It's the version of him she saw in the memory Aunt Pansy showed her, the one where she hexed Mum's teeth in Potions class. It was just a brief snippet of memory, and he said only a few words in it, but he was too skinny and dressed like this, all buttoned-up and billowing, and he had the same long, greasy hair and sallow skin as the man scattering students before him now.

Mesmerized, Becky stares as he disappears into the Potions classroom. She follows him inside, Gus walking beside her under the cloak. Inside the classroom, they stand against the wall and look around. The students look about their age, and are wearing either green or red ties, but they're not their Slytherin and Gryffindor classmates, or the second years. Becky stifles a gasp as she points at a table near the front of the room where a boy and girl in red ties are setting up their cauldrons. The girl, with bushy hair and buck teeth, is all business as she lays out her things with ruthless efficiency. The boy, whose round face hasn't yet matured into handsome, masculine features, acts like he's scared out of his wits, hands trembling as he sets up his Potions kit and casts nervous glances at the man in black glowering at the students.

Becky and Gus exchange a stunned look. If her mum and his dad are first years, the Time Turner took them back not thirty-four _hours_ , but thirty-four _years_. How did that happen? That's not how Time Turners work. Everybody knows that.

At the table next to young Hermione and Neville, a boy with unruly black hair and glasses partners with a red haired boy. Harry and Ron. A few tables back, an adolescent Pansy partners with Draco, whose beautiful face is marred by a supercilious sneer. The equally beautiful boy at the next table can only be Zabini's father.

Professor Snape – Becky can't think of this grim, sallow man as Daddy – waves his hand at the board and _Calming Drought_ , accompanied by a page number, appears in his familiar spiky script. "Get to work," he snaps, showing teeth every bit as awful as Becky's. He sits down at his desk, dips his quill in a pot of red ink, and starts scrawling comments on the scroll before him as he reads.

The students go back and forth to the supply room to get the ingredients they need. As Hermione passes by, Pansy casts a tripping jinx that sends Hermione stumbling right into Draco.

"Watch where you're going," he snarls, shoving her away as though she has leprosy or spattergoit and he might catch it.

"Shut it, Malfoy," Hermione mutters.

"Ten points, Miss Granger," Professor Snape says without looking up from his marking.

"That's not fair!" Harry says.

"Ten more points, Mr. Potter," he says, sounding bored.

Becky's mouth falls open in astonishment, then snaps shut in rage.

Pansy looks smug. Becky remembers how Pansy told her she was a horrid little bitch in school, and Becky couldn't believe it was true. Well, seeing is believing. And Draco. Gods, he's worse than Cass. Pansy told her that, too. She didn't tell her that poor Neville was such a scared little rabbit through. She supposes the Hat must really know what it's doing to see past the boy he was to the man he would become. She wonders what the Hat saw in her to be so adamant that she belonged with the Badgers.

Snape gets up from his desk and starts pacing the room like a large feline predator. He glares at the contents of Harry and Ron's cauldron, which is a murky gray instead of one of the various shades of purple in most of the other cauldrons. Two boys with green ties and rather bovine expressions have something that looks even less like the right brew in their cauldron, but the professor merely looks at it, then says, "Who can tell me what Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley have done to produce something that bears no resemblance to a Calming Drought?"

Hermione's hand shoots into the air. Snape looks at her like she's something he scraped off his shoe and scans the rest of the class. No hands go up. He waits. Draco and the dark haired boy partnering with Zabini look smug, like they know, but only Hermione's hand waves in the air.

Eventually, Snape turns to look at Hermione and Neville. She practically vibrates with the effort of keeping the answer from spilling out. Snape smirks, but remains silent, letting the moment drag out, like a cat playing with its food before the kill. "Mr. Longbottom?" he drawls at last.

Neville blanches. "I…I…I d-d-d-"

Hermione leans a little closer to him, glancing nervously at Snape, who says, "Tell him the answer, Miss Granger, and lose one hundred points for your House."

Hermione slumps, and Neville looks like he wants to die.

"Well, Mr. Longbottom?"

"I d-don't know, sir."

Snape sighs theatrically. "Mr. Nott?"

Zabini's partner replies, "They put too many lacewings in, sir."

"Ten points to Slytherin," Snape says, striding over to the two boys with green ties and yellow sludge in their cauldron. He vanishes the contents and says, "Begin again, Mr. Crabbe, Mr. Goyle. And use diced flobberworms rather than flobberworm mucous next time."

"Yes, Professor," both boys say and head back to the storeroom.

Becky feels sick to her stomach. She wishes they could leave, but the classroom door is closed so they can't go until class ends. How can her darling Daddy have been this awful man? How can he be so blatantly unfair to his students? So partial to the Slytherins? So hateful to Neville and Mum? _Especially_ to Mum? He _loves_ Mum. He doesn't love her now, Becky can see. He appears to loathe the very sight of her. Mum was teasing him just this morning at breakfast about being hated as a teacher, but Becky hadn't really believed it. Oh, she could believe he was strict and maybe a little cantankerous, but she never imagined anything like this. How could Mum joke about it, like it was something funny? There is nothing funny about the way he's treating her today. She glances at her mother, who is now the same age she is, and can tell that it's taking every bit of self-control Hermione has not to cry. She's seen Mum cry before, but rarely, and _never_ because of anything Daddy said to her. Becky feels her own eyes fill with the tears her mother doesn't dare shed. When one of them trickles down her cheek, Gus wipes it away with his thumb. He looks like he might cry himself if he wasn't a boy and boys didn't cry.

When class is over and the last of the students have filed out, Becky and Gus follow them, Becky casting one last look back at the bitter, angry man her father used to be.

They duck into the alcove where Becky first told Gus about the Time Turner.

"I'm sorry my mum was such a horrid bint to your mum," Gus says.

"And I'm sorry my dad was such a nasty git to your dad," Becky says. "I can't believe it. I mean, I saw it with my own eyes, but…"

"I know," Gus says glumly. "This wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be."

"No," Becky says. "And I have a headache."

"So do I. Do you suppose it's something to do with the Time Turner?"

"Probably. Let's go back."

"Do you think we have to go back from the same place we left?" Gus says.

"If we can get back in. Your password might not work in this time."

He sighs glumly. "I didn't even think of that."

"Let's try though," Becky says.

They wait long enough for the next class to have started so the hallways will be empty, then make their way back to the archway to the Headmaster's private quarters. Only it's not there. All they see is the alcove other people who aren't keyed into the wards see.

"Shite," Gus says.

"Who's that?" a voice barks out. They turn to see Argus Filch, who died when they were little children and he was a very old man. He's only sort of old now, and moves a lot quicker than they expect, bumping into them. He steps on the edge of the Invisibility Cloak, which slips and reveals the lower part of their bodies.

"Aha!" Filch cries, snatching the cloak off them. "What's this? You're in Hogwarts uniforms, but I've never seen you. Come on," he says, taking each of them by an arm. "We're going to see Headmaster Dumbledore."

Gus reaches into his pocket. When he pulls out his hand, he scatters a handful of black powder and everything goes dark. He gropes for Becky's hand, and when he has it grasped firmly in his, they run as if for their lives.

The staircases seem to be on their side, sliding into place to let them ascend and then moving again, leaving Filch shaking his fist and shouting at them from below, a chasm between the ground at his feet and the stairs he would take in pursuit.

They don't stop running until they reach the seventh floor and a doorway appears in the wall before them. It looks like the door into the Headmaster's private quarters, but when they enter, they're in an enormous room filled with old furniture, sports equipment, musical instruments, books, old clothes, trunks, and all sorts of odds and ends.

Once their breathing returns to normal, they look around them, and Becky sees that Gus is holding the Invisibility Cloak. "Good work," she says, gesturing to it.

"I told you I was only borrowing it. I couldn't very well leave it in the late twentieth century, could I?"

Becky gives him a small smile despite her headache, which is getting worse. "I want to go home," she says.

"Let's take a souvenir to remind us of our trip to the past," Gus says. "Just look at all this stuff!" He picks up a Quidditch bat.

"That's kind of big for a souvenir, and it's exactly like the ones in our time."

"Something small and unique," he says, looking around.

"I don't know if we should."

"What possible harm could it do? It's just a bunch of old junk people have abandoned."

"I suppose," she says doubtfully, then draws in a breath as a glittering piece of jewelry catches her eye. It's a diadem, sitting askew atop a bust.

Gus follows her gaze and levitates it down. "For you, my lady," he says with a courtly bow.

Becky feels a queer prickling when she touches the diadem, and a sense of melancholy engulfs her. She can't get home soon enough. Gus slips the glittering tiara into his pocket and throws the cloak over them. Becky lifts the chain so it's around both of their necks, and carefully counts out thirty-four spins.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

They're back in Gus's bedroom in the Headmaster's suite, but it still isn't Gus's room. It's not the room they appeared in thirty-four years ago either. Now it's a nursery, a room for a little child, with a stuffed white peacock sitting on the bed. A man sits on the edge of the bed facing away from them, holding a picture of a lovely golden-haired little boy.

Pansy walks in and gives a disgusted snort. "Stop sniveling, Draco."

The man puts down the photograph and stands up, turning to face Pansy. His face is drawn and tired. It's Draco Malfoy, but not the Draco Becky knows, the charming man with the easy smile. This Draco looks like he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"The Dark Lord isn't going to wait forever, you know," Pansy says. "We need an heir."

"I know," Draco says, running a hand through his hair. "But I can't. Not yet. I keep seeing it…"

"Did you honestly think he was going to let us raise a Squib?"

"He was my son."

"He was my son, too, Draco, but he was a Squib." She puts one hand on Draco's shoulder, and lets the other drift lower.

Draco steps away from her. "I have to do the accounts now."

Pansy's eyes narrow. "Let your pet Mudblood take care of them. Give Granger something to do besides sucking your cock."

Becky stifles a gasp, and Draco's eyes snap to where she's standing, narrowed, assessing. Pansy isn't paying attention, fixing her lipstick in a conjured mirror she vanishes once she's finished. Becky doesn't dare breathe, and reminds herself that even though it feels like Draco's eyes are boring straight into hers, he can't see her.

"I'm off, then," Pansy says, hips swaying as she heads for the door. "To see Blaise," she adds in answer to Draco's unasked question. "When you've whinged enough and are ready to put an heir in me, I'll be ready, but for recreational purposes, I prefer a man who doesn't have the residual taste of mud about him."

Becky looks at Gus, and her heart breaks at his look of mingled horror and shame at this woman who is and yet so very obviously is not his mother.

When the door closes behind Pansy, Draco crosses the room in just a few long strides and sweeps the cloak from them. "Well, well, what's this?"

They stare at him, tongue-tied.

"Who are you?" At their silence, he sighs. "Come on then. I have Veritaserum in my office." He takes each of them by the arm and marches them through the Headmaster's private rooms and into his office.

Becky draws in a horrified breath when she sees her father's portrait. She pulls away from Draco and walks over to it. "You're a portrait," she says. "Does that mean that you're…?"

"Dead?" Portrait Severus drawls. "Indeed. I can see why this one wasn't Sorted into Ravenclaw, Draco. But _our_ House? The Hat is losing its touch, I think."

"Oh, Daddy," Becky says, collapsing into sobs.

 _Daddy?_ Draco mouths at Severus over Becky's head. Severus sneers at the crying girl with his dark eyes and his crooked teeth.

"Headmaster Snape has been dead since long before you were born," Draco says to Becky, but his voice is gentle. "He is most certainly not your father."

Becky cries harder. Not only is her father dead, but his portrait is of the hateful man she saw in Mum's first year, not the man she's known and loved her whole life.

Draco hands Becky a linen handkerchief. "Who's your mother, child?"

"Hermione Snape."

"Hermione _Snape_?" Draco asks.

Becky nods. Portrait Severus and Draco exchange an uneasy look.

"Hermione _Granger_ Snape," Becky clarifies.

Draco turns to Gus. "And your parents?" When Gus hesitates, Draco opens a drawer and sets a bottle of clear liquid on the desk.

Gus sighs. "Neville Longbottom and Pansy Parkinson Longbottom."

Draco sits down heavily. "Blinky," he says. When an elf in a spotless tea towel pops into the room, he says, "Ask Professor Granger to come to my office."

* * *

 **Author's Note** : I've changed the story's rating from T to M, since things become a bit more adult in the alternate and very imperfect present. Many thanks as always to turtlewexler, whose _The Poison Garden_ is getting better with each new chapter, and to Fragilereality, who just posted a brand new Lumione, _Unforgivable Sinner_. There's only one chapter of it up now, but I've read some of the later chapters and they're fantastic. If you're one of the readers who gets annoyed with me for writing dancing-around-the-edges-of-sex scenes instead of actual sex scenes, then you're in for a treat with _Unforgivable Sinner_ , because Fragilereality can _really_ write sex.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Entering Draco's office, Hermione sees the two children and says, "You wanted to see me, Headnaster?"

"Have you ever seen these children?"

She looks at the children, no sign of recognition on her face.

"Tell Professor Granger your names," he says, "and who your parents are."

"I know you won't believe me," Becky says, looking at Hermione, "but I'm your daughter."

Hermione looks at Draco. "What is this?"

"We used a Time Turner," Becky says. "We went back what we thought was thirty-four hours, but it turned out to be thirty-four _years_ , and when we came back to the present, everything was different."

"The room we came back to is supposed to be my bedroom," Gus adds. "My father is Headmaster."

"Who's your father?" Hermione asks.

"Neville Longbottom."

She looks at Draco. "This isn't funny."

"It's not meant to be, Hermione."

She frowns at his use of her first name.

"It's all right," Draco says, not looking either at Hermione or the children. "Thanks to, erm, an overheard conversation, they know you and I are on a first name basis."

Hernione looks at the children, who look anywhere but at her. She turns to Draco. "You believe this nonsense?"

"The boy does look rather like Longbottom, don't you think?"

"I think it's a sick joke. Neville's been dead more than twenty years and this boy claims to be his son?"

"He's dead?" Gus says, dazed.

Becky takes his hand. "Both of our father," she whispers.

Hermione gives Becky an assessing look. "I suppose you're going to tell me _your_ father is Harry bloody Potter."

Becky shakes her head and looks at her father's portrait.

"That honor would appear to be mine, Professor Granger," he says.

"Draco, this has gone on long enough," Hermione says.

"I agree," Draco says, picking up the vial of Veritaserum. "We need to know the truth," he says to the children.

"Go ahead then," Gus says. "I don't mind. You'll see we're telling the truth."

Both children open their mouths and allow Draco to place three drops of Veritaserum on their tongues. After a few minutes, both of them get a bit glassy-eyed.

"What's your name?" Hermione asks.

"Augustus Longbottom."

"And yours?"

"Rebecca Snape."

"How did you get here?"

"We used a Time Turner," Gus says.

Draco and Hermione exchange a look. "Where did you get a Time Turner?" Hermione asks.

"It was yours," Becky says. "I took it. I'm sorry, Mum."

Hermione stares at the girl, then looks at Snape's portrait. Finally, she turns to Draco and says, "The Veritaserum must have gone off."

"I brewed it myself last week," Draco says.

"Then you brewed it wrong."

"I haven't brewed it wrong since my fifth year."

"Perhaps you could test it on Professor Granger?" Snape suggests.

"Headmaster Snape is alive in your timeline?" Draco asks.

"Yes," Becky says, "but he was never Headmaster."

"Professor Snape, then."

"He's not a professor either. He has his own Potions business. He says it's better to have clients than an employer, because you can tell any of them to sod off whenever you like."

Snape's painted sneer almost turns to a smile.

"But you're a professor, Mum," Becky continues, "and my brother Lucius will be when he finishes his apprenticeship."

"I named my son _Lucius_?" Hermione says.

" _Our_ son," Snape smirks.

"Who is your brother named after?" Draco asks.

"Uncle Lucius," Becky says. "Your father."

"I named my son after _Lucius Malfoy_?" Hermione looks like she's eaten something that's gone off.

"Yes," Becky says, "And Uncle Draco is his godfather."

"You call me Uncle Draco?"

"Yes," Becky says. "You're my brother's godfather."

"And who are your godparents?"

"Uncle Neville and Aunt Pansy," Becky says, sounding less monotone as the Veritaserum wears off.

" _Aunt_ _Pansy_?" Hermione says. " _Now_ will you admit this is all nonsense, Draco? The day I make your wife my child's godmother is the day..." She flounders for something as unlikely as this, but comes up empty. "If Fred and George Weasley were alive I'd say this was the best practical joke ever."

Becky and Gus exchange a look. The Weasley twins are dead, too? Both of them? What kind of world _is_ this?

"In their timeline she isn't my wife," Draco says.

Hermione looks at him, then at the children.

"She's my mother," Gus says.

"Neville Longbottom married Pansy Parkinson?" Hermione says. "Did she Imperius him?"

Snape's portrait makes a sound that sounds like a stifled laugh.

Draco pulls a chair in front of the children and sits down, looking first Gus, then Becky in the eye. "I'd like your permission to perform Legilimency on you. Will you allow it?"

They look at each other, then turn to Draco and nod. He pulls out his wand and holds it up in front of Becky. Looking into her dark eyes, he says, "Legilimens."

Becky feels Draco slip into her mind as smoothly as a mermaid into the Black Lake, barely causing a ripple. She can feel his presence, benevolent and curious, pressing gently against her consciousness. At first Becky pushes memories she wants him to see forward, as she did with the Hat during her Sorting, but eventually she lets him wander through her thoughts where he will, watching her interactions with her family, Gus's, and his own. Eventually she feels him withdraw, and feels almost sad at the loss of the comforting presence.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Draco looks dazed when he pulls away.

"You were in there a _long_ time," Hermione says.

Draco is silent long enough to make Hermione fidget and furrow her brow. When he finally speaks, his voice is awed. "I saw my children. _Two_ children. Two _living_ children."

Something twists inside Hermione. She's accepted that she'll never be able to give Draco a child, never be anything but his muddy little secret. Not because he wants it that way, but because of the world they live in. "Who was their mother?" she asks.

"Astoria Greengrass. I married her after you left me at the altar."

"After I _what_?" She left him? The Mudblood who's only allowed to teach at Hogwarts because the Dark Lord killed everyone else even halfway competent jilted the pureblood prince? A fallen prince, to be sure, but even so.

"We were engaged. You threw me over for Severus," he says, looking at his godfather's portrait.

Hermione opens her mouth to speak, then falls silent as she looks at Draco. His expression is one of ineffable sadness, and all the fight goes out of her. "You really _aren't_ having me on, are you?" she asks.

"No."

She looks at Draco, waiting.

"In their world, the Dark Lord is dead," he says. "He never came back after that business with Potters in 1981."

"But the Horcruxes…?"

"Becky has never heard of a Horcrux, as far as I can tell." He looks at the children for confirmation, and they look at him blankly.

"Becky," Hermione says. "She said her name was Rebecca."

"But she's called Becky, and he's called Gus," Draco says, gesturing to the boy. "They're both who they say they are."

"You named me after your Gran," Becky says to her father's portrait. "The one who read you the Pooh stories. You used to read them to me when I was little."

Snape is looking at the girl intently, then shifts his gaze to Draco, who nods confirmation, and finally to Hermione, who quickly averts her eyes from the portrait.

"My Dad was your apprentice," Gus tells Snape, and Hermione is struck both by how much he does look like Neville and by how much more at ease and confident he is than Neville was at his age.

Snape sneers at the boy from his canvas. " _Longbottom_ was my apprentice?"

Gus nods.

Snape looks at Hermione. "Perhaps they're having both of us on, Professor Granger."

"You were happy, Severus," Draco says, his tone still one of wonder. "You smiled. You laughed. You loved your children." He glances uneasily at Hermione. "You loved _her_."

Snape straightens cuffs that aren't crooked.

"Can we fix things?" Gus asks. "Go back to where we came from?"

"I don't know," Draco says, and looks at Hermione, then at Becky who is trying to stifle a yawn. "We'll figure things out tomorrow. For now, you must be tired from your adventure. Blinky," he says, and the elf appears. "Make up the two adjoining guest rooms near Professor Granger's quarters." He turns to Hermione. "I'll side-along them to their rooms. Meet us there?"

Hermione nods, then heads for the door as Draco, who as Headmaster is the only person who can Apparate within the castle grounds, disappears with the children. She refuses to look at Snape's portrait, but can feel his dark, painted eyes on her as she leaves her lover's office. The lover who has two children in that other timeline with someone other than her _or_ that bitch Parkinson, the lover she apparently rejected for _Severus Snape_.

The boy who claims to be Neville's son asked if they could fix things. She should want the answer to be a resounding yes. A world where the Dark Lord never came back, where Neville isn't dead, and presumably any of the others either. A world where she and Draco both have children, but not with each other. A world where Draco isn't the only person in the world who knows her, loves her, needs her as much as she needs him, two people who have lost everything and everyone else they ever cared about, clinging to each other as though their very lives depended on it.

Of course destroying the Dark Lord is worth losing Draco, she tells herself sternly. In that other world, according to what Draco saw in the mind of the daughter she doesn't know, she doesn't love him, doesn't want him. She threw him over for _Snape_ of all people, a Snape she can't even begin to imagine, a Snape who read Winnie the Pooh stories to a little girl who looks disconcertingly like both of them.

Her steps slow as she approaches the guest room door. That little girl is on the other side of that door. Her daughter. Snape's daughter. She knocks and Draco opens the door. It's the boy's room. "I'll get Gus settled if you'll see to Becky," he says, gesturing at the open door between the rooms.

Hermione nods and walks through the ensuite bathroom and the guest room beyond it. The girl who claims to be her daughter sits on the bed twisting a lock of her curly black hair around her finger. Hermione used to do the same when she was young, twisting those horrid curls she hated before she learned to tame them. When she'd first seen the girl, her hair looked the way Hermione's does when she charms it, but now the charm is wearing off and it's starting to kink up into the tight curls it forms naturally. The same curls as her own, only black like Snape's.

There are tears in the girl's eyes, and Hermione realizes that the way she's been staring at the girl must be upsetting her.

"I'm so sorry," the girl says, as the tears spill over. "I've ruined everything," she says as sobs rack her slight body. Hermione has no idea what to do. Students generally don't cry in her class – she isn't bloody _Snape_ after all – but on the rare occasions one does she ignores it until they stop, or sends them to the Headmaster's office if they don't. Draco is better with crying children than she is. Draco _likes_ children.

"Oh, Mummy, I'm so, _so_ sorry," the girl says, sinking down onto the bed and sobbing harder.

Hearing the girl call her _Mum_ was disconcerting enough, but the word _Mummy_ breaks something open inside Hermione. She never thought any child would call her that, especially not a little girl looking at her with tears in Snape's dark eyes. The Headmaster's pet Mudblood. Draco's whore. That's what people call her. What that bitch who stands at Draco's side in public calls her. No man's wife. No child's mother. Not _Mummy_. She feels tears prick her own eyes, and busies herself tidying the room that's already tidy.

"I'm sorry," the girl says again. "I should probably call you Professor Granger, shouldn't I?"

"I don't know," Hermione says. She sits down and looks at the girl. "What kind of mother am I?"

"You're the best mother in the world. And I stole your Time Turner and made it so you don't even know me and I'm so, so, _so_ sorry."

"You must be terribly afraid."

Becky nods.

Hermione hesitates. Should she take the girl's hand? Put her arm around her?

"What if we can't fix things?" Becky asks. "What will happen to Gus and me?"

"I don't know."

"You don't want us to fix things, do you?"

Hermione looks at her sharply, guiltily.

"The Headmaster loves you," Becky says. "I could tell when he was in my mind. Do you love him?"

"It's late," Hermione says, standing. "You should sleep."

Becky looks as though she might cry again. "Yes, Professor Granger."

* * *

 **Author's Note** : As usual, I'm writing a few chapters ahead of where I'm posting, and being able to bounce ideas off Fragilereality and turtlewexler has been a godsend in terms of helping make those as yet unposted chapters better. When both of them say something either is or isn't working, it helps me stop second-guessing myself. I've known how this story is going to end Big Picture since before I posted the first chapter, but as with Past Imperfect, some of the little details shift during the writing. Thank you to both of them, and to all of you who are reading, reviewing, favoriting, and/or following.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"Ready?" Draco asks, taking Hermione's hand.

Together, they lean forward until their faces touch the swirling mist inside the Pensieve. She's never watched a memory of Legilimency before, and it's different from watching a memory of something a person witnessed first hand. It takes her a few moments to acclimate to the layers of awareness – what Becky remembers seeing, what she was feeling while Draco was in her mind seeing it with her, and finally, what Draco himself was feeling as he saw it.

First is the scene with the Time Turner, Becky and Gus standing under the Invisibility Cloak – the memories _that_ brings back for Hermione – and counting out thirty-four spins. She watches the children run from Filch – more memories of her childhood with Harry and Ron – and feels Becky's shock as a young Severus Snape sweeps down the corridor toward her. She cringes at watching first year Draco's cruelty toward her first year self, as does Becky, but her reaction to Snape in the classroom is completely different.

For Hermione, this Snape is the only one she remembers, the one who sneered and scowled and snapped at her and her Housemates for six years. She knows he was a hero, on their side all along, but she learned this only after he was dead. She thought he was during his lifetime, trusted him, but that trust didn't translate into any feeling of benevolence or gods forbid affection. She respected his intelligence and his magical power but she never liked him.

Becky's feelings as she watches Snape in the classroom are a maelstrom of shock, anger, disbelief, horror, guilt, and above all love. The girl's love for Snape is powerful, all-consuming. In the memory, Becky looks at first year Hermione with compassion and outrage at her ill treatment, and though she can feel the love Becky feels for her, the intensity of it isn't quite what it is for Snape. Hermione knows it's insane to feel slighted by this. Why should she care that a child she's never known, who doesn't exist in this reality, loves Daddy more than she loves Mummy? Not Mummy though, just Mum. That's how Becky usually refers to Hermione in her thoughts. But Snape – horrid, bullying Snape – is always Daddy.

The scene dissolves and they're in Draco's office, Becky looking at Snape's portrait, sobbing. Hermione can feel the pain of Becky's loss twist like a knife inside her, and then Becky is a girl of seven or eight, sitting on Snape's lap, only he doesn't look at all like Snape, really. His hair is shorter, clean and shiny and streaked at the temples with silver. He's at a normal, healthy weight and he's wearing a shirt unbuttoned at the neck, no tightly buttoned frock coat in sight. His features are relaxed and warm as he holds his daughter. She's reading _Hogwarts, A History_ to him, and he occasionally corrects her pronunciation of an unfamiliar word. They both look up when Hermione appears in the doorway.

"You look beautiful, Mummy," Becky says, her eyes shining. Watching the scene, Hermione is ridiculously gratified that she hasn't yet become just plain Mum at this point.

She is completely gobsmacked by the expression on Snape's face when he sees her memory self. There is an initial flash of desire, a hunger so nakedly carnal that it takes her breath away, followed by a smile of such benevolence and, well, if she didn't know better, she'd almost say love. He's fixed his teeth, and this, along with the weight gain, the clothes, the clean and nicely styled hair, and above all the absence of sneering and scowling makes him seem almost a different man – one that Draco is jealous of, she realizes, becoming aware of her lover's emotions as he watched the scene in Becky's mind.

She looks at Draco now, and he is watching her intently. Hermione slips her arm around him and they continue watching as there is a knock at the door and Memory Hermione answers it and smiles – _actually smiles_ – at that bitch Parkinson, whom she will always think of as Parkinson no matter how long she's been Mrs. Malfoy. Parkinson smiles at Hermione in return instead of calling her homewrecking Mudblood slag. Becky jumps off her father's lap and launches herself at Parkinson, who sweeps the girl up in an embrace.

"Thanks for staying with her, Pans," Memory Hermione says. _Pans_? _Oh, for fuck's sake_. Draco's shock at this development during the Legilimency competes with Becky's excitement at getting to spend the whole evening with Aunt Pansy – _Aunt_ Pansy! – while her parents go out.

Hermione looks at Draco, who gives her an _I know, I couldn't believe it either_ look.

Snape drapes Memory Hermione's cloak around her shoulders, and the look she gives Snape is one of unadulterated love – and desire. Watching, Hermione's insides twist with embarrassment, and she can feel Draco's hurt and anger in the memory. When she looks at him now, though, he's just resigned.

The memories that follow are a patchwork of times and places, with Becky ranging from a little girl to her current age, and so many people who are dead in this world that Hermione's head is spinning.

Outside Malfoy Manor (she thinks that's it, but she only saw it at once, at night, and under circumstances where she wasn't paying attention to the architecture) Draco and Harry play seeker on opposite teams in a Quidditch game with Ron, George, and Fred Weasley, Neville, Gus, several younger men and, oh gods, is that _Snape_ playing chaser on Draco's team? Becky is watching the game snuggled up next to Lucius Malfoy of all people, while a golden-haired girl about the same age sits next to Narcissa.

"Yours?" Hermione asks, indicating the girl, who is too beautiful to be anyone's but Draco's.

"Yes, Cassiopeia. And Scorpius," he says, pointing at a blond boy playing beater.

"On Harry's team?" she asks, surprised.

"Apparently he and Potter's son James," Draco indicates the other beater on Harry's team, "are inseparable. You're godmother to both of them, by the way. And see that boy?"

"Yes?"

"That's your son Lucius."

Hermione looks at the boy, who looks to be a few years younger than James and Scorpius but considerably older than Becky and Cassiopeia. He and a blue-haired young man are playing chaser along with Snape on Draco's team. His hair is darker than hers but lighter than Snape's, with a wave that hits the sweet spot between Snape's fine hair and her own unruly curls. He's strikingly handsome, as though someone took a young Snape and then softened and idealized every feature.

Hermione glances at her son's namesake. Like Snape, Lucius Malfoy is minus the sneering arrogance in this world as he watches the game, his eyes moving from his son to his grandson and back again.

Ginny, too pregnant to play, cheers madly for Harry's team. Memory Hermione and Parkinson, deep in conversation, are the only ones not watching the game.

After Draco holds the snitch triumphantly aloft, Snape lands, tosses his broom aside, and sweeps Memory Hermione into his arms.

"Severus! You're all sweaty," she protests, laughing.

He waves his wand over himself. "Better, pet?" _Gods, he calls her_ pet?

"Much," she says, and leans into the kiss. Hermione's mouth goes dry as she watches, and she does not dare look at Draco.

She doesn't recognize the woman who is Draco's wife in the memory. She doesn't remember Daphne's little sister from school, had almost no contact with the younger children in Slytherin. There's no post-Quidditch kiss for Astoria, since the winning seeker is mobbed after the game, with his china-doll beautiful daughter clinging to him like a limpet.

"Good game, Draco," Harry says, clapping his boyhood enemy on the back.

"It was a near thing, Harry," Memory Draco says. "Well played."

 _What the fuck_? is what Draco was thinking when he saw that in Becky's mind.

"My thoughts exactly," Hermione says.

When they emerge from the Pensieve, neither of them speaks for a few moments.

"Well," Draco says at last.

"Your daughter's beautiful," Hermione says.

"So is your son," Draco says. "He looks rather like Severus."

"I was trying to figure out how both of those things could be true," Hermione says.

"My godfather was a deeply unhappy man for all the years I knew him. Obvously even his appearance was affected by that unhappiness." Draco is quiet for a moment, then adds, "He was happy with you. And you appeared to be happy with him."

"Draco…"

"I know. It's another life, another reality, another you."

"He still had that awful nose," Hermione says with a half-hearted attempt at a smile.

Draco returns her smile with equal lack of enthusiasm. "I'm not jealous, love. Not very, anyway." He frowns. "Not that I have any right to be, all things considered."

 _All things considered._ That tends to be the phrase both of them use to refer euphemistically to the ugly truth that he's married and she's what society considers his whore.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Draco watches Hermione sleep, listens to her soft, even breathing, feeling the warmth of her exhalations against his shoulder. Her hand lies on his chest, and he brushes a stray curl off her cheek. He sleeps in Hermione's bed more often than not, Apparating to his office in the morning after showering and dressing in Hermione's quarters. There was a time when they tried to be discreet, hide their affair from his wife, but Pansy was too clever by half, and was soon onto them.

Once she was, she told the Dark Lord, thinking he'd Crucio Draco and Avada Hermione. Instead, with the three of them kneeling in front of him before a circle of onlookers, Voldemort told Pansy he didn't care what filth Draco wanted to stick his cock in, as long as he kept Hogwarts running successfully and had produced an heir. No one had any idea yet that the boy would turn out to be a Squib.

"A wife should know her place," the Dark Lord said, with a hissing sibilant at the end of _place_. "Teach your wife her place, Draco."

It took Draco a moment to understand, and when he did, he felt a cold wave of dread. As angry as he was at Pansy, as much as he'd grown to despise her, he didn't want to torture her with the Cruciatus curse. But an order from the Dark Lord was not to be disobeyed, so he stood and took out his wand. With a look of apology at his wife, he cast the curse, imagining it was the Dark Lord himself at the end of his wand as he always did when compelled to cast an Unforgivable. You had to mean it, and that snake-faced maniac was the only person he really wanted to Crucio. He kept the intensity of the curse only as high and the duration only as long as it would take to satisfy the monster he served. If he went too easy, he knew the Dark Lord would curse her himself, or perhaps choose someone else to do it, and that person would take no chances with excessive leniency.

When Draco lowered his wand, Pansy was convulsing and vomiting on the ground.

When Voldemort hissed, "A whore should know her place, too," Draco's eyes snapped to the Dark Lord's hideous face, and he managed to shore up his Occlumency shields only just in time. "And a whore's place is lower than a wife's. Consequently, her lesson must be more severe."

Draco forced himself not to look at Hermione, who emitted a low whimper from where she knelt beside him.

"Much more severe," said the monster. "Do you understand me, Draco?"

"I understand, my lord."

"Excellent. Then teach your Mudblood whore her place, down in the filth and muck with the rest of her kind. Teach her well, Draco, or I shall teach her for you."

* * *

Draco wept and begged Hermione's forgiveness for the two days he nursed her back to health, days in which she drifted in and out of consciousness and he didn't know from one moment to the next whether she would wake up as mad as the Longbottoms. The thought of her beautiful, brilliant mind reduced to babbling incoherence by his own hand filled him with a dread that kept him awake and watching her obsessively. The Deputy Headmaster ran the school for those days, and Draco didn't leave Hermione's side. The Mediwitch was back and forth from the Hospital Wing, but no Healer could be brought from St. Mungo's because the Dark Lord had forbidden it.

On the third day, Hermione spoke. "I do," she said.

"You do what?" Draco asked.

"I do forgive you."

"How can you possibly?"

"He'd have killed me if you hadn't done it, or tortured me into madness," she said.

"I think you must be mad, if you can forgive me," he said. "By all rights you should hate me."

"He wanted you to hurt me too little, so he could take over."

"I know," Draco said. That's what had happened to Yaxley's son. The Dark Lord had told Yaxley to punish him, and when Yaxley held back, the Dark Lord cast the Cruciatus himself, and held it until the boy lost his mind from the pain. He's been in the Janus Thickey ward since, lying next to Alice Longbottom in the bed that her husband Frank had occupied until his death the year before. Everyone knew the story, and bore it in mind when they were ordered to cast the curse against a loved one themselves.

"You saved my mind," Hermione said.

"I hurt you so badly," Draco whispered, his face a mask of anguish.

"You didn't hurt me," she said. " _He_ did. You were only the instrument he used."

"Someday I'll kill him," he said. "For you. For this."

Now, watching the woman he loves sleep, Draco wonders if these children from another life are the means of keeping his promise. In their timeline, the monster is dead. If restoring that timeline is the only way to destroy the Dark Lord, does he have the courage to do it? When he made that promise, he had no idea that keeping it might cost him Hermione.

* * *

 **Author's Note** : Thanks as always to Fragilereality and turtlewexler, who have both become friends as well as beta readers. In addition to giving feedback on my fanfic stories in progress, they have also been reading chapters of my novel-in-progress, as I have of theirs. I am delighted to announce that my novel is no longer in-progress. I am finished! Finished with the first draft, at any rate. Revisions await, but it felt so wonderful to reach The End.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note** : You guys, I am so sorry it's been so long since I posted! I've been eyeball-deep in getting ready to revise my novel. It's given me such tunnel vision that I haven't even looked at this story for weeks. My apologies. Here's a longer than average chapter, which will hopefully make up for the delay.

* * *

Chapter 11

After putting in a brief appearance at breakfast in the Great Hall and announcing that Professor Granger's classes are cancelled because she is ill, Draco returns to the children's rooms, where they are eating breakfast. Hermione is drinking tea and looking at an empty portrait frame that hangs on the wall.

"Was that here last night?" she asks.

"No," Draco says. "I had Blinky hang it so Severus could join us."

 _Severus_ , Hermione thinks. She called him Severus in that memory. Of course she did, if he was her husband. She can think of the man in that memory as Severus, he was so different from the Snape she knows.

That Snape steps into the empty portrait frame, the skinny, greasy-haired, buttoned-up, scowling Snape, not her memory-self's husband Severus.

"How are you feeling this morning?" Draco asks the children.

"My headache's a little better," Gus says.

"Mine, too," Becky says.

"You both have headache?" Snape asks sharply. "Since when?"

"Yesterday," Gus says. "It started when we were back in the past."

Snape sighs. "You'll have to run diagonstics on them," he tells Draco. "Normally less than a day in the past wouldn't have any effect, but they're children, so…"

"What do you mean, _normally_?" Hermione asks. "I used a Time Turner for my entire third year and never had headaches."

"How did you obtain a Time Turner when you were a child?" Snape demands.

"Headmaster Dumbledore thought –"

"That dunderhead," Snape snaps. "I might have known."

"About the headaches," Draco interrupts.

"Presumably you only traveled back a few hours at a time when you used the Time Turner, Professor Granger?" Snape asks.

"Of course," Hermione says. "That's all anyone can go back…" She looks at the children. "Oh."

"Indeed," Snape says. "There were only a few of those Time Turners created, and to the best of my knowledge, no one but Unspeakables ever used them, or even had access to them."

"And they got headaches when they went back years?" Draco asks. "Were there any other side effects?"

"Organ damage. It could be quite severe if left untreated."

Draco takes out his wand and casts a diagnostic charm over Gus, and Hermione does the same with Becky.

"I had hoped we wouldn't have to tell anyone else about this, but we need the Mediwitch," Draco says.

"No," Snape says. "I can tell you what you need. The healing potions you can get from the Hospital Wing, but there's a potion designed specifically to counteract the temporal shift."

"How do you know all this?" Hermione asks.

"I did a bit of…contract work with the Department of Mysteries. I'm the one who developed the potion."

"If we take the potion when we go back to the past to fix things, we won't get sick?" Gus asks.

"Considering how well you _fixed things_ the last time you inserted yourselves in a time when you didn't belong," Snape says, "I'd say your time traveling days are over."

"Do you suppose it was the souvenir?" Gus asks Becky.

"Souvenir?" all three adults ask in unison.

"This," Gus says, pulling the diadem out of his pocket.

Hermione gasps.

"What is it?" Draco asks. Snape looks as uncomprehending as Draco.

"It's a Horcrux," Hermione says grimly. "The only one we couldn't find and destroy. We looked everywhere, thought it would be in the Room of Lost Things, but it wasn't."

"Is that the room on the seventh floor that's full of all kinds of old junk?" Gus asks.

"Yes," Hermione says. "Is that where you found it?"

"Yes," Becky says. "What's a Horcrux, Professor Granger?"

Draco looks startled at how Becky addresses Hermione, but says nothing.

"It's a piece of the Dark Lord's soul," Hermione says.

"Who's the Dark Lord?" Gus asks.

"Someone I hope you never meet," Draco says.

"What I don't understand," Hermione says, brow furrowing, "is how the Dark Lord never came back at all in their time. He came back at the end of our fourth year, and we destroyed the other Horcruxes in our sixth and seventh years. If the diadem was in the Room of Lost Things before they took it, wouldn't the Dark Lord still have come back in our fourth year, but been destroyed in our seventh?"

"Something else happened between your first and fourth years that prevented his return," Snape says.

"What?" Hermione asks.

"I have no idea," Snape replies, "but something did. And when they took the diadem, they prevented that something from happening."

"Then they have to put it back," Draco says.

 _Or we could just destroy it here, now_ , Hermione thinks as Draco writes down the potions Snape tells him the children need, and how to make the potion to counteract the effects of the temporal shift. But the Dark Lord may have made other Horcruxes, she realizes, and even in the unlikely event he hasn't, someone would still have to kill him, and that someone would be Draco. She'd lose him either way. Losing him to Astoria Greengrass is better than losing him to death – and then having to live in this world without him. In Gus and Becky's world, she wouldn't know what she'd lost, would never know what it was like to love and be loved by Draco Malfoy. Only that other Hermione did, didn't she? Draco said they were engaged, and she left him for Snape. In what kind of world was that possible? A world where she had never known a Dark Lord, never hunted Horcruxes. A world where Ron and Harry were alive, and Harry and Draco were friends. A world where Severus Snape was _almost_ attractive and called her pet and kissed her in a way that made her memory self…

"Hermione!"

"Yes? What?" She looks up at Draco, who is looking at her with a worried frown. The children and Snape's portrait are looking at her as well. "Sorry," she says. "I was…"

"Miles away," Draco says.

She nods.

"I've sent Blinky to fetch the potions the children need from the Hospital Wing, and I'm going to brew the Time Turner potion."

"I'll help you," Hermione says.

"I can manage," Draco says "Severus will coach me through it. I thought you might want to spend some time with your daughter."

Hermione nods, but does she want to, really?

Blinky pops back with a tray of bottles. As the children swallow the prescribed amounts, Draco tells the elf, "Put an empty portrait frame in my lab, please," then turns to his godfather. "I'll see you there."

"Can I help?" Gus asks Draco. "I've been helping my dad with potions since I was old enough to hold a knife."

"Have you? Then come along," Draco says, offering his arm for side-along. Gus takes it and Draco turns. The two of them disappear with barely a sound. Snape nods formally before stepping out of sight beyond the portrait frame, leaving Hermione alone with Becky.

* * *

 **Author's Note** : Many thanks, as always, to turtlewexler and Fragilereality, whose stories The Poison Garden and Unforgivable Sinner are regularly updated and well worth your time.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"How's the headache?" Hermione asks.

"Almost gone now," Becky replies.

They lapse back into silence, and Becky wonders how it is that she's so tongue-tied in front of her own mother. Only this woman isn't her mother, really, is she? She's Professor Granger, who doesn't have any children, and doesn't want any children. Or maybe she does want children, but with Draco, not with Daddy. Not the children she has in the other timeline. Not Becky.

"So how do you like your classes?" Hermione asks, the kind of question adults who don't particularly like children ask children.

"They're fine," Becky says.

"Which is your favorite?"

"Defence."

"Who teaches that?"

"You do."

"I do?" Hermione asks, surprised.

"That's not what you teach now?"

"Gods, no. The Dark Lord would never permit it. I teach Transfiguration."

"I'm not very good at Transfiguration. You try to help me, but it's my worst subject."

"How are you at Potions?"

"Brilliant. Daddy's been teaching me since I was little," Becky says, and feels tears pricking at the back of her eyes. She will _not_ cry. This isn't _really_ Mum, and she won't cry in front of her.

"You love him very much, don't you?" Hermione asks.

Becky nods.

"It must have been terrible seeing him that way when you went back to the past. Draco showed me the memory," she explains when Becky looks surprised.

"It was awful," Becky says. "He's nothing like that. You were, erm, Mum was joking about it just that morning, and I couldn't believe it."

"Joking about what?"

"About how the students used to hate him," Becky says. "You, I mean, she…"

Hermione smiles. "The pronouns get tricky, don't they?"

Becky smiles back. "They do."

"You don't have to call me Professor Granger and say _she_ instead of _you_."

"You want me to call you…?"

"Mum is fine. If you like," Hermione adds awkwardly.

"How could you joke about it, Mum?" Becky asks. "About how horribly Daddy treated you when you were in school? He was _awful_!"

"I don't know, really. He _was_ awful, but from what I saw in your memories, in your timeline, somewhere along the line, he stopped being awful." She sighs. "I suppose that by the time we had you, the way he was when I was in school seemed like a long time ago and it didn't matter anymore."

"He was never awful that I can remember."

"I wonder what changed?" Hermione muses. "As he said, something happened between my first year and my fourth that prevented the Dark Lord from coming back. Maybe whatever it was is what changed things for….for your father."

"Maybe," Becky says.

"In those memories, we seemed like a happy family. Were we?"

"Oh, yes!" Becky says. "I mean, Lucius is a prat, but aside from that, we're – we _were_ – very happy."

"I really named your brother after Lucius Malfoy?"

"He's Daddy's best friend, and the one who got you the job at Hogwarts."

Hermione's eyes widen. "He did?"

"Yes. After you and Daddy and Gus, Uncle Lucius and Aunt Pansy are my favorite people in the world," Becky says, and when Hermione's expression darkens, quickly adds, "I know Pansy's awful in this timeline, but she's nothing like that in ours."

Hermione snorts.

"What's Uncle Lucius like in this timeline?"

"Trust me, you do _not_ want to know."

"That bad?" Becky asks, and sighs when Hermione nods. "You're right. I don't want to know. Seeing Daddy and Pansy this way is bad enough."

"Tell me about your brother," Hermione says.

"He's almost as smart as you and Daddy. He thinks he's smarter, just because he beat both your NEWT scores, but –"

" _Did_ he?"

"He did, and he was perfectly insufferable about it."

Hermione smiles. "Then he really is my son, isn't he?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Insufferable. That's what Snape always called me when I was in school."

"He still does, once in a while," Becky says, "but only to tease, and he says it in a nice way."

"I don't think anyone in this timeline has ever used the word _nice_ to describe anything about Severus Snape."

"This is a horrid timeline," Becky says. "I'm so sorry I did this, Mum, really."

"I know."

"And I'm sorry about…about Draco."

Hermione's expression turns guarded, and she calls for Blinky and orders tea.

"Draco was awful when you were in school, too," Becky says, stirring sugar into her tea, "but he isn't now."

"No, he isn't."

"When did he stop being awful?"

"Sometime after we left school. After the final battle, I went into hiding with Minerva. Do you know Minerva McGonagall?"

"Yes," Becky says. "She was Headmistress until last year, when she retired."

"Her family had a house in the Highlands that was under a Fidelius Charm, and I studied Transfiguration with her there. She was injured in the war, so there were some things she couldn't do, but she taught me everything she could. When she died, I started teaching students privately. Draco heard that I was teaching, and got a message to me offering the position at Hogwarts. I ignored him for over a year, but eventually, after I'd heard how bad things were for the students at Hogwarts under a series of Death Eaters who had no business teaching Transfiguration or anything else, I agreed to meet with him."

"And he was different from when you were in school?"

"Yes. I couldn't see it at first, didn't want to see it. I wanted to go on hating him." She vanishes the cold tea from her cup and pours more. "It took a long time for me to see that he'd changed sides, and that no one knew, apart from Snape's portrait. He was all alone, trying to protect the students as best he could. When he protected them too well, it would take him days to recover from the Dark Lord's punishment." She draws a shaky breath. "I've never known anyone braver."

* * *

 **Author's Note** : Thanks to the best beta readers ever, Fragilereality and turtlewexler, who are not responsible for any mistakes here since I tinkered with it after they saw it.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

"Your father taught you well," Draco says when Gus finishes chopping.

Snape snorts from his canvas.

"What?" Gus demands, glaring at him.

Draco smiles. "Severus, you're losing your touch. This one's not afraid of you at all."

"Nothing like his father then," Snape mutters.

"The only reason my dad was afraid of you in first year is because you were a bully," Gus says.

"There's definitely some of Pansy in you, son," Draco says.

Gus makes a face. "She's not like that in our timeline."

"I know. I saw that in Becky's memories," Draco says. "I'm glad she's not." He sighs. "I think this timeline brings out the worst in everyone."

"Not you," Gus says.

"I'm worse in _your_ timeline?"

"Not worse," Gus says, "just different. In our timeline you're nice. Everybody likes you. But here you're…" He gropes for the right word but can't find it.

"Noble," Snape says.

"Yes," Gus agrees. "Noble."

"The noble Death Eater?" Draco shakes his head with a sad smile. "I think not."

"Noble enough to give up the woman you love to save the world," Snape says. "Though I'm not sure the lady in question is on board with the plan. Understandable, given that she's the one who will end up married to the bat of the dungeons."

"You're not a nasty git in our timeline," Gus says. Draco laughs and Snape glowers. "You're not as ugly either."

"You're as blunt as a bloody Gryffindor," Snape says.

"The Hat said it was a toss-up," Gus admits, "but Mum promised me a top of the line broom if I ended up in her House instead of Dad's, so…" He shrugs. "Anyway, where we came from, you're not ugly and you're not a git and Aunt Hermione doesn't seem to mind being married to you."

"Indeed?" Snape sneers.

"Yeah," Gus says. "She likes you."

"I find that exceedingly difficult to believe," Snape says.

"She probably wouldn't if you acted like this though," Gus says.

"If portraits could look into a Pensieve you wouldn't find it difficult to believe," Draco says, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. He turns to Gus. "So in your timeline, your mother and I were never…?"

"Oh, you dated my mum when you were in school," Gus says. "But she says she came to her senses in time. Oh, sorry," he adds, realizing how that sounded.

"So I lost one woman to Longbottom and another to you," Draco says to Severus. "I really must be noble if I want to go back to a world where I've made a career of being thrown over."

"You seem happy with Astoria," Gus says.

"Well, that's a comfort," Draco says. He vaguely recalls Daphne's entirely unremarkable little sister. They did have beautiful children. Magical children. Children the Dark Lord didn't put down like they were some sort of defective animal. At least the monster cast the Avada himself instead of ordering Draco to do it. If he had, Hogwarts would now have another Headmaster.

Draco is pouring the cooled potion into bottles when Hermione comes in. "It's finished?" she asks.

"Just now," Draco says. "Mr. Longbottom here was a great help."

"How are you feeling?" Hermione asks Gus.

"Not too bad, why?"

"Becky doesn't look well. I wanted to see if the potion was ready."

"I'll take it to her now," Draco says. "Ready?" he asks, holding his arm out to Gus.

When the two of them have Apparated away, Hermione turns her back to Snape's portrait and heads for the door, but stops before she reaches it. When she turns around, Snape is watching her, his expression inscrutable.

"I suppose you could always destroy the diadem and then make a suicide run at the Dark Lord," he says.

"All in vain if he's made another Horcrux."

"So you've already thought of that possibility. Can't say I blame you."

"I suppose _you_ 'd risk keeping the Dark Lord alive to avoid marrying _me_ ," she says.

"That hypothetical is hardly comparable."

"Isn't it? You hated me when I was in school."

"No more than any other student," he replies. At her rolled eyes, he amends, "No more than any other Gryffindor student. It was not personal."

"You didn't hate me in Becky's memories," she says. "Quite the opposite, as difficult as that is to believe."

"Not as difficult to believe as you feeling… _quite the opposite_ about me."

"But I did," she says. "She did, the version of me in that other timeline."

"Just when I had accepted this bizarre situation," Snape says, "I fear I am once again back to believing that someone is having us on. Or at the very least me. You and my godson seem to be in on the joke."

"It's no joke, Severus," she says, ignoring his surprise at her use of his given name. "I saw it with my own eyes. We were married, and happily."

"And having seen this, you now go willingly to your fate?"

"Will you stop with the sarcasm, please? Just for a few minutes? Long enough to let me see if the man I saw in those memories is in there somewhere?"

He sneers, but holds his tongue.

"It's true that I dread what we're about to do, but it has nothing to do with you personally," she says, "at least not since I saw Becky's memories. I'd feel the same if it was Harry or Ron or Neville or anyone else I was married to in that timeline. It's losing Draco that I dread, not being with you."

Snape watches her carefully but says nothing.

"You were a wonderful father in that timeline," Hermione says. "That little girl loves you so much."

"I never thought I would be a father at all," he says. "to say nothing of a good one. I never thought to be anyone's husband, either," he adds after a moment. "I don't imagine I was terribly good at _that_."

"You were, actually," Hermione says. "From what I could see through Becky's eyes, at any rate. We were…affectionate with one another," she finishes awkwardly.

"Are you certain I didn't Imperius you?"

She smiles. "If you did, your stamina in keeping it up for nearly twenty years of marriage is most impressive."

"It's always been my best Unforgivable."

She looks at him sadly. "What kind of life have you led, that the only way you can conceive of having love and happiness is by means of an Unforgivable?"

"Precisely the kind you might imagine."

 _I'm so sorry_ , she wants to say, but knows he'd hate it if she did. She realizes that her unspoken thoughts are written clearly on her face when he says, "I neither need nor want your pity. Bad enough to endure the guilt and shame of knowing that some version of you will be saddled with me instead of my godson, but to have your pity as well, when you're the one who should be pitied…"

She opens her mouth to speak but he cuts her off.

"Go, Granger. You and Draco haven't much time left. Don't waste it."

* * *

 **Author's Note** : Thanks as always to the best beta readers ever, turtlewexler and Fragilereality.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Becky makes a face at the taste of the potion, but drinks it all down and sets the bottle down. "Headmaster?" she asks. Gus has gone to his room to lie down, and she and Draco are alone.

"Yes?"

"Do you think my father's portrait would talk to me, if you asked him? Alone, I mean," she clarifies.

"I can ask him," Draco says. "But he's a stubborn man. Or at any rate, he was a stubborn man in life, and he's a stubborn portrait now."

"I can see that."

"Are you sure you really want to?" Draco asks. "He's not the same man you knew. He's likely to say something hurtful."

"I know," she says.

"I know what it's like," he says. At her puzzled expression he continues, "Having a father who says hurtful things."

"Your father is wonderful in our timeline."

Draco sighs. "I wish I could have known that Lucius Malfoy."

"Me too," Becky says. "You're the only one I like better in this timeline."

"Gus said something similar." He gives her a sad smile. "Makes me almost want to Obliviate all of you and call it a day. Almost," he reassures her when he sees her widened eyes. "But not quite."

"Because you love Mum," she says.

"I thought you called her Professor Granger."

"She said I could call her Mum."

"Would you like to call me Draco?"

She nods.

"Tell me about my daughter," he says.

"She's very beautiful," Becky says wistfully.

"I could see that," he says, "but what is she _like_? What kind of person is she?"

Becky hesitates and chews her lip awkwardly.

"You're not friends, are you?"

"We were when we were younger, sort of. Now we're more like…frenemies."

"Frenemies," Draco chuckles. "That's better than your Mum and I used to be."

"Draco, why did you hate Mum when you were in first year?"

"Because I'd been raised to despise Muggleborns. My parents did, my grandparents did, and so I did, too. Children believe all sorts of idiotic things when they're too young to know any better."

"But you know better now?"

"Yes, I have for some years now," he says, then grimaces and clutches at his left arm.

"What's wrong?" Becky asks.

"The Dark Lord is summoning me. Tell your mother," he says grimly, and Apparates away.

Becky is trying without success to read one of the books on the small bookshelf in her room when Hermione returns. "The Dark Lord summoned Draco," she says without preamble.

Hermione takes a deep, shuddering breath.

"What will happen?"

"Sometimes he asks Draco how things are going at Hogwarts, and Draco tells him, and that's the end of it."

"And other times?"

"The other times are why you need to go put that Horcrux back where it was."

"Does he hurt Draco?"

"Sometimes."

"Badly?"

"Yes," Hermione says.

"And you take care of him, after?"

"Yes. On my own when it's not too bad, with the Mediwitch or a Healer when it is."

"How often does it happen?"

"There's no pattern. He'll go for months, sometimes even a year, with only routine visits to report on the status of the school, then he'll be tortured two or three times within the span of a month. It's one of the ways the Dark Lord keeps people off balance, keeps them always wondering, always fearing."

Becky shudders. "I can't even imagine."

"No, you can't. And I'm glad you can't. I'm glad your world is one where children don't have to imagine things like that."

"Has he tortured you?"

"The Dark Lord? Not with his own wand, but he's ordered…someone else to do it."

"I'm so sorry, Mummy. It's all my fault. You getting tortured…Draco…all of it."

"But we're going to fix it," Hermione says.

"I know you don't want…" Becky hesitates awkwardly. "You really do love him, in our timeline."

"It appeared so in your memories," Hermione says.

"Do you want me to tell you about him? Or let you see more of my memories?"

Hermione hesitates for a moment, then sighs. "I don't see what the point would be. We're going to do what we're going to do, and how I feel about it is irrelevant. Once you go back and replace that Horcrux, there won't be any _me_ to feel anything, only _her_."

Both of them lapse into a silence broken by the pop of Blinky's Apparition. "Missy Professor Granger, the Headmaster's wife is asking for you."

Hermione sighs. "Because I was stupid enough to think that this day couldn't get any worse," she mutters. "Thank you, Blinky. Tell her I'll be right there."

"No, Missy, I is to take you there now," Blinky says, taking Hermione by the hand and disappearing along with her.

* * *

 **Author's Note** : Thanks as always to turtlewexler and Fragilereality for beta reading – and for writing stories I love to read.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

"Where's my husband?" Pansy demands when Hermione and Blinky appear in the Headmaster's sitting room.

"The Dark Lord summoned him," Hermione says.

"When?"

"Less than an hour ago."

"Why didn't you tell me, Mudblood?"

 _It didn't occur to me that you'd care_ , Hermione thinks, but she doesn't say it. The balance of power here is clearly in Parkinson's favor, and both of them know it. Hermione could always kick Parkinson's arse without breaking a sweat when they were in school. They haven't dueled since, but Hermione has continued to practice with Draco and she's pretty sure Parkinson hasn't bothered to keep her skills sharp. But they won't duel. Hermione will hold her tongue and let Parkinson threaten and insult her.

But instead of threating or insulting, Pansy sighs and says, "You win."

"Pardon?" Hermione frowns.

"Draco. You can have him."

"I don't understand."

"I'm leaving him. Blaise and I are getting married. The Dark Lord's given his approval."

Hermione stares, speechless.

Pansy sneers. "I thought you'd be overjoyed."

"The Dark Lord will just make him marry some other Pureblood to get his heir."

"Better the devil you know?" Pansy asks with what would almost seem like humor if Hermione didn't know better. "I suppose so, since at least he hates me."

Hermione looks at the woman who got her tortured in this life, but appeared to be her best friend in that other life, the one Becky and Gus obliterated with their "Do you ever wonder how things would have been if our side had won?" Hermione asks.

Pansy frowns. "What?"

"What kind of life you'd have had. Whom you'd have married. Whether you'd have children. Who your friends would have been. Who knows?" Hemione muses. "You and I might even have been friends."

Pansy barks out a laugh. "Gods, Granger, I think you've gone round the bend."

"Perhaps I have," Hermione says, then hesitates before adding awkwardly, "I hope you're happy. You and Blaise."

Pansy looks at her as though trying to figure out what her angle is, then says, "Thanks, Granger."

Hermione walks from the Headmaster's chambers back to her own much smaller rooms, chosen for their location on an upper floor that affords her a view of the castle gates. When Draco is unharmed, he Apparates directly back into the castle from wherever the Dark Lord summoned him, but when he's been too badly injured, another Death Eater dumps him outside the gates, leaving him to make his way back in as best he can.

When she opens the door, Draco is inside, apparently unharmed. "I'm divorced," he says.

"I know."

"How?"

"As crazy as it sounds, your ex-wife told me."

"The soon to be Mrs. Zabini."

"She told me that, too." Hermione draws a breath. "And who's to be the next Mrs. Malfoy?"

"You are."

"That isn't funny, Draco."

"It's not meant to be," he says. "There aren't enough Purebloods left. Between the ones who died in the war and the ones the crazy bastard killed in one of his fits of temper we're a dying breed. And when we marry each other, half the time our children are Squibs. Did you know Theo Nott married a Muggleborn?"

"No."

"They had a daughter six months ago and she's already manifesting magic. Theo and his first wife had two Squib children before they divorced. _Two_. Gods, can you imagine?"

"So after all these years and all that propaganda, suddenly Muggleborns are no longer the bane of the wizarding world?"

"It would appear so."

"Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia," Hermione mutters.

"What?"

"Muggle novel," she says, then asks, "Does this change things?"

"The children, you mean?" he asks.

She nods.

"It shouldn't. The Dark Lord is still in power. He's still a fucking lunatic. He could still kill or torture either one of us at his slightest whim."

"Or our children, if we have them."

"Or our children," he agrees.

"I want to have them," Hermione says. "Even with the Dark Lord here, I want to have your children."

"And what about the child you do have? The one who's sleeping just down the hall?"

"What about her? How do we know her timeline is the right one? Who's to say ours isn't? What gives that Hermione Granger more right to live her life than I have?"

Draco pulls her into his arms. "So many rhetorical questions," he murmurs into her hair.

"Who says they're rhetorical?" she snaps, wiping angrily at the tears she can no longer hold back.

"Tonight they don't have to be. Tonight you're the woman I'm going to marry, the woman who will bear my children, the only woman I've ever loved and ever will love."

Before she can answer his lips capture hers, caressing, seeking, devouring. She presses herself against him as he pulls her closer. The desire that floods her system blots out all thought of children and Horcruxes, Dark Lords and timelines, right and wrong. There is only Draco, and nothing else matters.

* * *

The moon shining through the window bathes the room in silvery light when Hermione wakes hours later. When she returns from the bathroom and slides back into bed, Draco is still sleeping. He's beautiful when he sleeps.

"Draco," she whispers. She remembers the first time she called him that. They'd been lovers for nearly a month, but their initial couplings were rough, angry bouts of hate sex, and they remained Granger and Malfoy, growling insults rather than whispering endearments. She hated herself even more than she hated him – or told herself she hated him – during those first few weeks when they both kept saying _never again_ , only to come crashing together as though drawn by a force greater than either of them.

The shift happened when Blinky brought him, bleeding all over his Death Eater robes, to Hermione's rooms. She tended to him as he lay in her bed trembling and babbling incoherently. Her name was one of the things he said. Not _Granger_ , but _Hermione_.

They are Draco and Hermione in that other world, too, but friends, not lovers. She watches him sleep, wondering how that other Hermione could have broken their engagement, broken his heart. How could she not want him, when in this world she's never wanted anyone but him? There was her schoolgirl crush on Ron, but after that, nothing.

Draco was her first lover, though she wasn't a virgin. The Death Eater who raped her as she fled with Minerva after the battle saw to that, before she killed him. But there was no other man she'd given herself to willingly, or wanted to.

What are she and Draco like in that other world? Carefree, from what she saw in Becky's memories. What is it like to be carefree? She can't remember. That other Hermione knows, as does the other Draco. So does the other Snape. Severus, who plays Quidditch with Harry and Ron, who read stories to Becky when she was little, who looks at that other Hermione with a desire that appeared to be fully reciprocated.

Intellectually, she knows that other Hermione Granger – Hermione _Snape_ – is happy. That Hermione loves not Draco but Severus and Becky and a beautiful boy she named after Lucius Malfoy. But _this_ Hermione Granger – soon to be Hermione Malfoy if not for those damnable children and their damnable Time Turner – doesn't love anyone but the man sleeping beside her.

Draco murmurs something in his sleep and reaches for her. She settles into his embrace, breathing in his scent, listening to his heart beating under her ear. She doesn't know how much time they have left together in this dark, awful world, but she is determined to wring what happiness she can out of every last moment.

* * *

 **Author's Note** : We're coming up on the end. Only three more chapters to go. They're all written, and I'm just letting them sit before revising. Thanks as always to Fragilereality and turtlewexler not only for beta reading, but also for encouraging me and being generally awesome.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Becky looks around at the Room of Requirement, which looks much as it did when she and Gus were here the first time. The bust where they found the diadem still sits on its shelf, dusty and unadorned. The Time Turner is around her neck and Gus holds the Invisibility Cloak, ready to put it over them before they go back, just in case there's anyone else in the Room when they arrive.

Draco hands each of them a bottle of the Time Turner potion. "Drink half of it," he says, "and keep the other dose just in case. You shouldn't need it if you put the diadem back and then come back to the present immediately."

Gus and Becky drink the potion and put the half full bottles in their pockets.

"And you _will_ come back immediately," Draco continues, more sternly than they've ever heard him speak. "This isn't a game, isn't an _adventure_. You have our lives in your hands. You do understand that?"

"We do," Gus assures him.

Becky only nods, feeling ashamed and awful as she looks at Hermione, whose eyes are puffy and red-rimmed. Draco doesn't appear to have been crying, but he looks sadder than she's ever seen another person look. Becky feels her own eyes start to prick with tears. The remorse for what she and Gus have stupidly, selfishly, thoughtlessly done is almost more than she can bear.

Gus drapes the cloak over them and through it Becky sees Draco take both of Hermione's hands in his. The way he looks at her is like a knife through Becky's heart. Guilt twists deep inside her, but through the guilt and the shame over what she's done, she feels something else, a longing deep in her soul to have someone, someday, look at her the way Draco is looking at Hermione, love her the way he loves the woman who both is and isn't her mother.

Becky spins the Time Turner carefully, counting out thirty-four turns, and just before she and Gus vanish into the past, she sees Draco and Hermione come together, clinging to one another as though their very lives depend on never letting one another go.

Becky's eyes are blurred with tears when Gus pulls the cloak off them and takes the diadem out of his robe pocket. As she watches him put it back on the bust, it occurs to her that when she wished that someone would love her the way Draco loves Mum in that other timeline, she didn't wish that _Gus_ would love her that way someday, but that an unnamed, unknown _someone_ would. Her crush on her best friend is something she sees from the outside now, something childish and a little embarrassing. They're children. They know nothing of what she saw between the couple whose lives they destroyed with their Time Turner, and they won't for many years yet, if they ever do.

They're alone in the Room of Lost Things, but they put the cloak back on anyway and, keeping their promise, use the Time Turner to go immediately back.

After thirty-four careful spins, the room is still empty, still full of old junk, but things have shifted a bit, new junk added to the old. The bust is still on the shelf, but the diadem is gone.

It seems almost anticlimactic, Becky thinks as they walk down the stairs and through the corridors. They pass classmates they recognize, going back to their common rooms at the end of the school day. By unspoken agreement, neither Becky nor Gus head to the Slytherin common room, but to their respective family quarters.

"Twice in one day," Hermione says with surprise when Becky enters. "What's the occasion?"

It takes Becky a moment to realize that for Mum, it was only that morning that Becky was there for breakfast – and a theft she deeply regrets. "I just missed you," she says.

"Have you been crying?" Mum asks.

Becky shakes her head and searches her mother's face, looking closely. Hermione looks the same as she did in that other life, but slightly different. The lines of tension around her eyes and between her brows are gone in this world. She smiles more, and the smile always reaches her eyes. She is relaxed and happy.

"Where's Daddy?" Becky asks.

"Meeting with a client. He should be back soon."

"Mum, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, love."

"It's kind of personal."

Hermione looks at Becky quizzically.

Becky takes a breath. "Why did you break your engagement with Draco?"

Hermione's brows shoot up. "What on earth makes you ask about that?"

"I don't know. I was just curious."

"It was such a long time ago."

"Were you in love with him and then stopped loving him?"

Hermione sighs. "It was…complicated."

"Do you ever regret it?"

"Regret it?" Hermione frowns. "Regret not marrying Draco?"

"Yes."

"What on earth…? No, of course I don't regret it. I love your father."

"Why? What made you love him?"

Hermione gets sort of a faraway look. "I don't know what makes one person love another. Circumstances have a lot to do with it, I suppose. If we make one choice, take one road in life, we love one person. If we take another…"

"I worry that I'm going to take the wrong road," Becky whispers. Or maybe that she already has.

"What brought on all this introspection?"

Becky is saved from having to lie when the door opens and her father comes in. She devours him with her eyes, cataloguing every little difference between the man she saw in that other life and the one she has known all of hers. Like her mother, he looks relaxed and happy. She lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding, and launches herself at him.

"What's this?" he laughs. "You act as though you haven't seen me in days, when you were here for breakfast just this morning."

Becky doesn't answer because she's crying too hard.

"What's wrong, Piglet?" he asks.

"Nothing," she says, her voice is muffled against his robes.

"Are things really so bad in Slytherin?" he asks

"No, it's fine," she says. Not getting along with her stupid Housemates now seems like the most trivial of problems. What does she care if Cass and Delilah are a couple of catty little cows and Zabini is a pompous git?

"If you're really that unhappy," Hermione says, "you can ask to be re-sorted."

Becky turns to look at her mother. "I can?"

"It's in _Hogwarts, A History_. A student can ask to be re-sorted anytime during his or her first year. It doesn't happen often. The last time was in the early 1800s, I think."

"But I made my bed," Becky says. "I should lie in it, don't you think?" _I should be punished for what I did to you and Draco in that other world_ , she thinks.

Hermione shrugs. "Who says?"

Becky looks at her father.

"It's up to you," he tells her. "I won't think any less of you whatever you decide."


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

The rules require that the Sorting has to be done publicly, and by the Headmaster. Every eye in the great Hall is on her as Becky walks to the stool. A few of her Housemates jeer and hiss quietly as she passes, but they can sod off. None of them except Gus seemed in the least glad to have her in their House, so why should they care if she leaves?

"Rebecca Snape of House Slytherin," Neville begins solemnly. "What seek you?"

"I seek to be Sorted anew, Headmaster," she replies, using the archaic phrasing the ceremony requires.

"Do you understand that a second Sorting is for life, that it cannot be undone?"

"I do, sir."

"Then sit."

Becky perches on the stool, feeling the stares of her Housemates but looking only at her godfather as he lowers the Sorting Hat onto her head.

 _You again, little snake!_

 _Me again_ , Becky thinks.

 _Didn't like the House you chose? The House you were so insistent on joining despite my counsel?_

 _Not much,_ she thinks. _You were right. I should have listened._

 _What if I've changed my mind?_ the Hat demands. _What if that little stunt you and young Longbottom pulled have convinced me that you were right and I was wrong?_

 _Then leave me in Slytherin_ , she shrugs. _It's your decision._

 _You're not going to beg and plead?_

 _No._

 _Even if I put you in Gryffindor?_

 _Do as you see fit_ , she says, and means it. The prospect of staying in Slytherin doesn't fill her with dread, even though she knows it will be worse now that she's publicly tried to get out. They're only children. Their cruelty and spite are petty things. She's seen what it is to genuinely suffer, and she knows that whatever her Housemates may do or say, things could be so much worse. She lives in a world without a Dark Lord, a world where her father is alive and well and happy. That's all that matters.

"Hatstall!" Arthur Weasley shouts. "She's caused _another_ bloody hatstall!"

 _You've grown up since you were here last_ , the Hat tells her.

 _I've made a start on it anyway,_ Becky thinks.

 _Indeed you have, little badger_. "Hufflepuff!" the Hat proclaims.

When the Hat is removed Becky glances down at her tie, which changes before her eyes from green to yellow. Her new Housemates are cheering and clapping. The applause from the Gryffindor table is almost as thunderous. The Ravenclaws clap politely, but there is stony silence from the Slytherin table. Gus remains quiet, but he gives her a small smile.

Becky walks to her new House table and sits down next to Jack Diggory, who is also a first year. She looks at her father and Pansy standing at the back of the hall. Pansy winks, and Becky feels a rush of gratitude, in part because her godmother isn't disappointed in her, but mostly because she isn't the awful woman she was in that other world.

* * *

"You've been avoiding me," Pansy accuses. "Good thing there's a wedding today and you need your hair fixed or who knows how long I'd have had to wait before you visited."

"I haven't been avoiding you," Becky says. It's a half-truth at best. She hasn't been able to get that other Pansy out of her head, but she can't tell her godmother this. "And I didn't come just to get my hair done. I could have done it myself. I can do the spell almost as well as you can now."

"Ah, but there are other spells. That one was just the tip of the hairdressing iceberg."

"Really?"

"Really," Pansy affirms. "And you can't just wear it hanging down your back for a wedding at Malfoy Manor, for Nimue's sake. I'm going to give you a fancy up-do that will make Cass Malfoy look like something the Kneazle dragged in."

Becky shrugs. "I couldn't care less what Cass looks like. It's her brother's wedding. She ought to look beautiful."

Pansy puts her hands on her slim hips and looks hard at Becky. "You've gotten over him," she says at last.

Becky nods.

"Maybe you'll come around by the time you're both the right age."

"Maybe."

"But don't hold my breath?"

Becky smiles, showing teeth that lately she forgets for hours at a time are crooked. "It's silly, having a crush at my age."

"That never stopped me," Pansy says.

Becky knows it was Draco Pansy had a crush on in first year. Draco, whom that other Pansy married and made miserable. Later today Becky will see him for the first time since she left that other timeline.

"What's wrong, pet?"

Becky looks up at her godmother and smiles rather sadly. "Just thinking."

"Well, hold your head still while you think," Pansy says.

Becky holds still and feels Pansy's magic slithering in and out of her curls as they twine into the most beautiful hairstyle she's ever seen. "It's amazing!" Becky exclaims. "You have _got_ to teach me that one."

"I'll teach you all of them eventually. And all my _other_ beauty secrets. When you're old enough," she adds with a smirk.

Becky smiles.

"Well, what do you know."

"What?" Becky asks.

"You didn't blush. You always blush when I say things like that."

Becky straightens her shoulders and toys with one of the curls that trail down her neck from the up-do. "Hufflepuff ladies do _not_ blush," she says archly.

* * *

 **Author's** **Note** : To everyone who has read, favorited, and reviewed this story, thank you so much. I have to admit that after how popular _Past Imperfect_ was (up to 677 favorites now!), it feels a little like crying into the wilderness writing a story that gets so much less traffic. My lovely beta readers turtlewexler and Fragilereality have been wonderful about shoring up my tattered ego, and the fact is that I have really enjoyed writing this story, to the point that I've already started writing part three, _Future_ _Imperfect_ , to round out the [Verb Tense] Imperfect Trilogy.

I haven't decided whether I'll actually publish it here or not, however, because I got the brainstorm that I could turn it into original fiction instead, if only I could figure out how to do it without magic and time travel. Thorny problem, that. If I do figure it out, I'll probably take this story down at some point so I can weave it and the planned part three together into something new (since the protagonist, Becky Snape, is my original character and doesn't belong to JKR) and let _Past_ _Imperfect_ remain here as a stand-alone story.

Either way, only one more chapter after this!


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Becky stands at the edge of the dance floor watching the couples make their way around the floor. Scorpius and his new bride Aurélie are gorgeous and glamorous, but Becky spares them barely a glance. It is her own parents who absorb her attention. She's observed them surreptitiously since the day she and Gus came back, but the wedding is the first occasion she's had to watch them together when they won't notice her doing it. Watching them dance gives her the confirmation she needs. They _are_ in love. Her father _is_ happy. Her mother _doesn't_ have feelings for Draco, whom Hermione treats in the same casually affectionate way she does Harry, Ron, and Neville.

When the song changes, Draco and Astoria join the dancers, and Becky turns her attention to them. She's been observing Draco and his wife as well today, but she can't tell much. They're pleasant to one another, and they're certainly an _attractive_ couple. The whole family is almost too attractive to be real – Draco and Astoria, Scorpius and Aurélie, and Lucius and Cissy, both still beautiful well into their sixties, which for witches and wizards isn't really old. And then there's Cassiopeia, holding court amid a bevy of admirers.

Cass doesn't get under Becky's skin the way she used to. In a new House, with new friends, Becky has too much on her mind to bother much with mean girls in other Houses. The Hufflepuffs have Herbology with the Slytherins, where Becky sits with Gus and most days forgets Cass is even there.

Being in different Houses has not made Becky and Gus any less close. If anything, they are closer, having shared the experience of that other timeline. But it is a different kind of relationship now that Becky's crush has evaporated. For the present, she is concentrating on her schoolwork, set on learning as much as she can. She knows she isn't going to beat her swotty brother's NEWT scores, but she _can_ become a competent – possibly even powerful – witch worthy of being Hermione and Severus Snape's daughter.

When Draco and Astoria leave the dance floor, Becky's eyes follow them. When Astoria moves to join her sister Daphne, Draco walks toward the ballroom door and Becky follows him, down the corridor, around a couple of corners, and into the library.

"Why aren't you enjoying the party?" Draco asks, surprised, when she enters.

"I have been. It's a lovely wedding. But wanted a break from the crowd for a bit, and I love your parents' library."

"I wanted a break from it, too," he says. "Mother and Astoria live to entertain, but I find it a little exhausting."

"Draco, may I ask you something rather personal?"

His brows lift. "That depends. How personal?"

"Mum will never talk about what happened, why you and she were going to get married but didn't."

"No," he says, "I don't imagine she would."

"And that means you won't either?"

"No, I won't."

Becky nods. "I didn't think you would," Becky says. "But…" She bites her lip, hesitating, then takes a breath and plunges in. "Are you happy?"

He frowns a bit, puzzled. "Am I happy?"

"Yes."

"I suppose I'm as happy as most men. I love my family, have a successful business. What makes you ask?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

She sighs. "I suppose I just have a hard time understanding how people can be in love one day and then not in love the next."

"Love is a complicated thing," Draco says, then adds, "For what it's worth, I don't think your mother and I would have been suited, long term." He grins. "She's awfully bossy."

Becky laughs. "I've noticed." Her smile fades as she realizes that the reason Hermione wasn't as bossy in that other timeline is that she was a despised Muggleborn in the Dark Lord's world.

"Severus handles it much better than I ever did when we were young," Draco says.

"You stayed friends with both of them, despite everything."

"I'm not going to talk about the details, but suffice to say there were extenuating circumstances, and neither of your parents did anything…dishonorable."

"Thank you," Becky says. "I appreciate your telling me that."

"I suppose the father of the groom had best be getting back to the party. May I?" he asks, offering his arm.

"I'll stay here for a bit," she says. Alone in the library, she nearly jumps out of her skin when Lucius Malfoy removes his Disillusionment charm.

"You scared me half to death!" Becky cries.

"Obviously," Lucius says.

"What are you doing here?"

"This is my house."

Becky rolls her eyes.

"I followed you," he clarifies.

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to know why my son is of such particular interest to you today."

"I'm not particularly interested in him today."

Lucius chuckles. "You're just as bad a liar as your mother. Why are you suddenly so interested in what happened between Draco and Hermione all those years ago?"

"I don't know."

"Another of your terrible lies. I think you saw something that made you curious."

Becky nods.

"Something you weren't meant to see?"

She nods again.

"Something no one in this timeline was meant to see?"

Becky gasps.

"So you found your mother's Time Turner, did you?"

"How did you know?"

Lucius smirks. "Let's just say I've been down this road before with another curly haired young witch."

"How did you know she had a Time Turner?" Becky asks.

"First I want to know what you saw with that Time Turner."

Becky hesitates. "Do you promise not to tell my parents?"

"That depends on what you tell me. If no one will be hurt by keeping your secret, then I'll keep it."

She thinks about this. "Fair enough. It was supposed to be just a lark, hop back a few hours and play a trick or two on the swotty Ravenclaws. But instead of hours, we went back years."

"We?" Lucius asks, settling himself on the sofa.

Becky sits down beside him. "A friend and I."

"Ah," he says, "Longbottom then."

"We took a souvenir back with us," Becky continues, "and it turned out to be a Horcrux."

Lucius draws in a horrified breath. "And the Dark Lord was alive?"

"Yes. He came back during Mum and Draco's fourth year, and everything was different. It was horrible. Everyone was awful. Pansy was just horrid."

"She was a horrid girl," Lucius says, "but she grew out of it."

"In that timeline she didn't. You were horrid, too, Mum and Draco said. My father was dead but his portrait was awful."

"And your mother and my son? Were they awful, too?"

"No, they were both good and kind. Especially Draco," she adds. "And they were..."

"They were…?" Lucius prompts.

"They were in love."

"Ah. Hence your question to Draco."

"Yes," Becky says. "They loved each other so much in that world. It made me wonder why they didn't in this one."

"The answer to that question involves the very same Time Turner."

"No one should ever use Time Turners," Becky says. "I don't know why Mum even had one."

"Time Turners can be used for good. And that one was, once."

"Tell me," Becky says.

"Not many people know that story."

"Who?"

"Just Severus, Hermione, Draco, and Cissy."

"And you."

"And me," Lucius acknowledges.

"And me, after you tell me."

He chuckles and she waits, pulling locks of his long, silky hair through her fingers as she's done since she was a tiny little girl.

"And you, after I tell you," he agrees. She leans against him and he puts his arm around her shoulders. "The first time the Dark Lord fell," he begins, "not in the past we all know now, but in a different past, a past most imperfect…"

* * *

 **Author's** **Note** : Thank you all so much for reading. Thank you to all who reviewed or PM'd with your kind words, and especially to turtlewexler and Fragilereality who have been such a wonderful source of support, reading chapters of this story and my original fiction, and sharing their writing with me.

This story has been such a pleasure for me to write, and even if I have to say "These characters are not mine…et cetera, et cetera" about Draco and Hermione and Lucius and Severus and Pansy, at least I can say that Becky _is_ mine and no one else's.

I've written four chapters of _Future Imperfect_ but I won't post the story until and unless I get the whole thing plotted out and am sure I plan to finish. Stay tuned.


End file.
